


Hallow Be Thy Name

by SplendentGoddess



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Childbirth, Christmas, Epic Battles, F/M, Family, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Pregnancy, Romance, Rough Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplendentGoddess/pseuds/SplendentGoddess
Summary: Another year has come and gone for our favorite couple. With the jewel finally completed and purified, what new changes and challenges will they face as Halloween once again rolls around in Kagome's time? Complete! Part three of my 'Hallow' trilogy.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Miroku/Sango (InuYasha)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47
Collections: Hallow





	1. As time goes by…

Blanket Disclaimer:

Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.

========================

Hello and welcome! This story is part three of my 'Hallow' trilogy.

Original post date on mediaminer: 10/30/08

The Hallow universe is off-canon primarily in regard to timeline accuracy, as like many people did back then, I had originally stretched the length of time the 'original' mission took to be over two years, rather than merely the nine or so months that it really was in the manga.

Other than that, however, the general story history for the characters within this universe is fairly on par with canon, with the main two exceptions being first that from approx. manga chapter 474 or so, Inuyasha and Kagome, as well as Sango and Miroku, were married. Second, I converted the battle in chapter 525 to become the _final_ battle, which resulted in both Naraku's death and a second shattering of the Sacred Jewel. The canon details of the manga from chapters 526 and beyond don't exist in this story's universe.

This story is also not exclusively based on the manga canon, as I have included details that are unique to the anime and movies, meaning that anime-only characters, like Ayame, exist in this universe. Even though she's an anime-exclusive character I've always liked Ayame because she offers the prospect of a happy ending for Kouga.

Where part two of this saga left off, Miroku and Sango had since decided to settle down and raise a family in Kaede's village, while Kagome and Inuyasha were still traveling the countryside in an attempt to reassemble the Sacred Jewel yet again. As is the nature of this particular series, the sequels are kept in 'real time'...meaning that since this third installment was originally written one year after the second story, one more year has now passed for the characters within the story as well. However, just like in Hallowed Anniversary, there are several flashbacks in this one that will help bring everyone up to speed.

Although I never specified in Hallowed Anniversary one way or the other, I've since decided that it did not take very long for Miroku and Sango to get started on their family. Timeline details from that story reveal that Naraku was defeated approximately five months after where All Hallows' Eve takes place, which I've arbitrarily decided means that by the time period of Hallowed Anniversary, Sango was about five months pregnant. Since this story takes place one year later, that means that Sango and Miroku are now the proud parents of an eight-month-old baby boy.

As for Inuyasha and Kagome's parental status...well, you'll just have to read and find out.

````````````````````````

Chapter 1 – As time goes by…

  
  


Pausing in her work, Kagome turned her face towards the sun's warming rays, taking a moment to close her eyes and breathe deeply the afternoon air. It wasn't as sweet-smelling as the pollution-free atmosphere of the Feudal era, but still pleasant enough in its own right. Focusing her attention back on the task at hand, she pulled and stretched the shapeless clump of cotton-like fluff she held in her grasp until the nature of the fake spider web revealed itself. Next, she craftily hooked one end on a nail sticking out of the eve, originally meant for stringing Christmas lights, as she then carefully lowered herself from the stepladder to attach the other end of the web to a much lower portion of the house.

Kagome absolutely loved decorating homes for Halloween. It was a guilty pleasure she hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy in five years.

When she was younger, she used to decorate her shrine home every year, despite the fact that Trick-or-Treaters very rarely, if ever, bothered to climb all those steps merely to earn a single piece of candy. The Halloween following her fourteenth birthday had been her last, however, as the average teenager-turned-miko's life had been instantly and irreparably flipped upside down from the very moment she was dragged through the Bone Eater's Well at the tender age of fifteen. _That_ year's Halloween had honestly been the furthest thing from her mind, as the confused and frightened adolescent had suddenly found herself in the middle of the adventure of a lifetime.

Then the following year, she'd deliberately chosen not to mention the holiday. It wasn't as if she'd had any plans for the 31st, anyway. Nobody she knew had had a party in the works or anything of the sort, so Kagome had honestly seen no point in making her friends in the past aware of the holiday she'd be missing in the future, especially when she knew that at least _one_ of said friends wouldn't have cared in the slightest, even if she _had_ had plans. Inuyasha had been nicer to her at that point in time than he had been back when their adventure had first begun, and Kadome'd had the sneaking suspicion that his feelings for her had gone a little deeper than what he'd wanted the others to know, but they'd still hardly been what she would've called best friends, as he'd always seemed to go out of his way to be a total jerk to her whenever possible.

Then there was the Halloween following her seventeenth birthday, the year that changed it all. Kagome still couldn't believe all that had changed between herself and Inuyasha literally overnight. They hadn't just had sex, they'd gotten married. He'd confessed his feelings for her, and hadn't hesitated in the slightest when it'd come to _proving_ how he felt. Kikyou had already passed away, which had meant that Inuyasha had been free to express his love for her without a guilty conscious regarding his previous obligations to the other miko. While Kikyou's death had still been a tender subject between them for a time, Kagome had known that, in a way, Inuyasha had felt relieved to know that at least Kikyou wasn't suffering any longer. She had finally become an ordinary woman, and had even been able to spend her final moments in the arms of the man she loved.

Kagome still recalled with crystal clarity the sensation she'd felt as Kikyou's soul had flown over to greet her, how warm and inviting the older miko's aura had felt. Inuyasha had never denied his feelings for Kikyou, and admitted openly that he had loved her a great deal, but Kikyou had not been the _only_ woman he had ever loved, she'd merely been the _first_ , and Kagome could and _did_ accept that.

While their relationship hadn't been perfect back in the beginning, it'd been about as close to perfect as it could've gotten, under the circumstances. A miko being wed to a hanyou in the Feudal era hadn't gone over too well with very many people outside of Kaede's village, but fortunately, at least the local villagers _had_ all accepted them. While Inuyasha was usually a bit on the shy side when it came to expressing his feelings – in public, anyway – he and Kagome had been grateful to not have to worry about pretending that their relationship was still platonic whenever staying in the village they had come to think of as their true home. The occasional chaste kiss in public view never led to rock throwing or torch-lit chases.

It had probably also helped to soften the blow that the hanyou and miko had still continued to live with Kaede rather than building a permanent residence of their own, at least at first. They had been at the village so rarely back then, after all, first still having to continue hunting the dark hanyou Naraku, and then after his demise, having to still go back out to recollect the scattered shards of the Sacred Jewel a second time. So the elderly miko's dwelling had more or less just been a place to crash for a night or two between ventures, at least until their mission had _finally_ come to a close once and for all.

Stepping away from the front porch to gaze at her handiwork, Kagome smiled at her progress while resting a delicate hand on her swollen belly. After last year's fiasco at that 'haunted' house, some of her friends were rather Halloween-ed out this year, as Ayumi was planning on simply going over to Hojo's house to watch some scary movie marathon on TV. Kagome smiled a little to herself at how well those two had ended up hitting it off. Eri, meanwhile, had no desire to throw another party, but had decided that a more subdued evening of handing out candy would be fun, to which Yuka had readily volunteered both hers and Kagome's services with the preparations.

Not that the miko truly minded all that much, especially since she secretly loved putting up Halloween decorations. But truth be told, even if they had wanted her to do something that she hated, she still would have agreed without complaint, still just so caught up in her feelings of relief that her friends from throughout junior high and high school were in fact _still_ her friends, despite all that had happened last year and what they now knew of her life, and Inuyasha.

“How's it coming?” said hanyou suddenly asked from his place behind her on the lawn, successfully pulling Kagome from her thoughts.

Turning and offering her husband a playful smile, she gestured toward the front of Eri's house and asked in turn, “What do you think?”

Inuyasha, still holding the old, dilapidated piece of driftwood that Kagome had asked him to find, took a minute to genuinely criticize her work. He was fully versed in the concept of Halloween by that point, both in the more ancient sense, as well as what her 'modern' world did to commercialize the holiday.

“The webs above the door should have a couple of plastic spiders in them, but all the webs themselves look great,” he told her honestly. He then held out the old warped plank of wood he'd found in a wash a few miles away and said, “Here ya go,” as he handed it to her.

“Oh this is perfect!” Kagome exclaimed as she took it from him, planning on writing the word 'Enter' on the board in drippy, fake blood.

She was then going to hang it on the front door, as the door already had a nail in it usually reserved for Christmas wreaths, and have the bowl of candy be waiting for the children inside the genkan.

“Hi guys!” Yuka greeted as she quickly closed the distance between herself and the married couple.

She only lived a few houses down from Eri, but it was much more fun to spend their time together at only one of their homes, and if Eri wanted to do it at her place, well then that was just fine with Yuka. That meant she wouldn't get stuck with the clean-up duty.

“Already in costume, I see,” the girl said to Inuyasha with a playful wink.

“Yeah, well...what can I say? I'm really attached to it,” he teased back, while deliberately wiggling his ears. He smirked at the way her eyes quickly rose to catch the movement.

He'd been right, of course, about how he'd believed that Kagome's various friends would react to the knowledge of his half-demon status. While Hojo was still a bit wary of him, they rarely saw the boy those days, unless he merely happened to be accompanying Ayumi somewhere.

As for the wavy-haired girl, as well as Kagome's other two girlfriends, all three women had fawned all over Inuyasha, more or less, once the scare of last year's Halloween had finally worn off and they'd come to their senses about how he really _was_ a hanyou.

Of course, he and Kagome had still been forced to bend the truth a _little_ bit, as she hadn't felt comfortable sharing the secret of the well, no offense to her friends. So they believed that Inuyasha was from their time, having no reason to think otherwise, though they fortunately never asked him many questions regarding his past or his parents. Kagome had warned them that he was a very private person when it came to such things, and would only get angry if they pestered him rather than caving-in like she herself usually would if they kept hounding her.

Not that that meant Inuyasha never spoke with her girlfriends at all. While he wished to avoid any topics he wouldn't be able to answer honestly with their need to keep the well and jewel a secret, he had no problem answering their occasional questions about his youkai half in general, like what his abilities were, or how strong he was, how strong his senses were, and so forth. The way they asked their questions made it clear that the girls were only curious. They accepted him for what he was, they just wanted to know more about it.

The fact that he had not only been invited to tonight's casual get-together, but had also been enlisted for his services in the preparation of said event, really went a long way to show Inuyasha just how accepting Kagome's friends actually were. That, and the way Yuka currently had her hand resting on Kagome's pregnant belly, cooing something in baby-talk gibberish that had his wife giggling behind her hand. It was beyond obvious that the child Kagome was carrying would not be fully human, and yet nobody seemed to care. That concept was somewhat mind boggling to him.

Kagome, seeing her husband and mate's goofy grin, instantly knew just where his thoughts had wandered off to, and she couldn't help but to smile at the sight, as well as at her own thoughts. Yes, he was her mate. Although inu-youkai didn't typically 'mate for life' – the fact that he had an older half-brother whose mother was still alive was proof enough of that – he was _still_ her mate, even if it was technically their human marriage that made the bonding between them more permanent. But just because most inu-youkai went through a few different mates throughout their long lives didn't mean it was unheard of to stick to a single partner. It was perfectly acceptable in inu-youkai society to remain indefinitely with one's first rutting partner, if that was what you wanted. So they _were_ mates, so long as they decided to remain so. It wasn't as if getting married and choosing to remain life-mates was somehow taboo to his youkai species, not that he would have cared either way, since he loved her with all the strength of his human heart.

His immediate desire to properly wed her in the human fashion had been unexpected, but truly appreciated. While Kagome had unfaltering faith that they didn't _need_ to be married merely to guarantee that they would stay together, the simple fact that he had _wanted_ to marry her had shown her _his_ desire to prove that he had no intention of ever leaving her side. He had told her their first night together that he couldn't make her any promises, because their future had still remained so uncertain back then, but marrying her hadstill been a promise of sorts, regardless, which was that so long as he was still breathing, and so long as the well continued to allow each of them entry into the other's world, he would be hers.

Kagome had promised to be his in return, having understood the uncertainties they'd faced better than anyone. There hadn't only been the concern of either of them falling in battle, but also the very real risk of getting separated by a span of time stretching five hundred years.

Getting married, in a sense, had been more symbolic than anything else, as the uncertainties they'd faced had still existed regardless of their marital status, but it had offered each of them a sense of peace, in a way, to know that no matter what might happen in the future they would forever _have been_ married to the person they loved. Having been faced with such an uncertain outcome, Kagome had easily made the decision that she would rather one day become Inuyasha's widow than to lose him without ever truly having had him to begin with.

They had continued to live by their 'live each day as though it may be your last' mentality for over a year, until finally, one day, it appeared the gods had truly smiled upon them.

It hadn't taken them nearly as long to recollect all of the Sacred Jewel shards the second time around, which at the time they'd thought was mostly due to the fact that they hadn't had another enemy equal in power to Naraku working against them in his own search for the shards. For the most part, it'd been random lower youkai that had acquired the scattered crystals, beasts that were relatively easy for the proficient shard hunters to dispatch. They even had some occasional help, as more than once Sesshoumaru had made an appearance to relinquish his claim on a shard or two, assuring them that though he was not deliberately seeking out the shards, he would nonetheless continue to bring them any he happened to come across in his travels.

They'd even gotten a surprise visit from Ayame once, the she-wolf having also sought them out to deliver a pair of shards into Kagome's possession. Her mate, Kouga, had stated with conviction that he'd wanted absolutely nothing to do with the damnable things, recalling how his original shards had very nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion. Kouga had also, at least according to Ayame, wanted to apologize for his previous behavior, while the redhead had also taken the opportunity to personally, and with great sincerity, congratulate both the hanyou and miko on their relationship.

Well of _course_ Ayame had been happy about their mating; it had been the direct catalyst that had made Kouga finally relent to her own desire to become _his_ mate. But having assumed for the time being that the male ookami-youkai truly had felt remorseful for the way he'd previously acted, Kagome had told Ayame to let Kouga know that he was forgiven. There was no point in staying angry with the guy when, by Kouga's own declaration, she was off limits to him now, and even if she hadn't been 'ruined goods', _he_ was now mated, so Inuyasha definitely had nothing to worry about as far as the wolf ever showing his face again, at least in the form of competition.

Even though the miko still didn't really understand his way of thinking, even to that day, Kagome had at least come to accept the fact that, as a wolf-youkai, Kouga's logic, as well as his emotions, all worked very differently from her own. It was moments of realization like those that had Kagome thanking every god she could think of for Inuyasha's human heart. Her husband might've been half inu-youkai, but his love and devotion for her was that of a human man, through and through. Even when he allowed his youkai blood to rise to the surface, his inner beast coming out to play, he never forgot himself, or the fact that his wife was a delicate mortal. A mortal he loved more than life itself.

Even so, Kagome had hardly been blind, and she had easily been able to see the speck of sad longing her husband had attempted to keep hidden within his eyes as they'd continued to hunt for the shards of the Sacred Jewel.

As Yuka continued to gently pat and speak to her seven-month pregnant belly in that moment, and the miko observed the look of absolute bewilderment on her husband's face at the sight of her friend being accepting of their future child, Kagome remembered well how she'd known for a long time that Inuyasha had felt as though something very important had been missing in their lives. It'd been an absence that she'd felt as well, after all.

She hadn't missed the way her husband's eyes had lingered on Miroku and Sango's hut as they'd passed by on their way out of town, on what they hadn't known at the time would turn out to be their final shard hunt. Kagome had known that Inuyasha had longed to start a family of his own; it had been something that she'd desired as well, but they had agreed long before then that nothing could be finalized along those lines until after the completion _and_ purification of the Sacred Jewel.

Despite the fact that it would have been incredibly stupid and risky to have Kagome traipsing all across the countryside while pregnant, there had also still been that pesky matter of lingering uncertainties hanging over their heads. Leaving Kagome a widow was one thing, but leaving her a single mother was something that Inuyasha had absolutely refused to chance. At the same time, while Kagome had had much more faith in her hanyou's abilities to keep himself alive regardless of whatever shard-enhanced enemies came his way, there had also still been the very real issue of whether or not she would become trapped on her side of the well once the Sacred Jewel finally ceased to exist. Even if she never went through the time portal again, choosing to merely remain in the past, there had been the slight possibility that upon the jewel's completion Kagome would have simply been pulled into her time against her will.

It had been an unpleasant question that they'd both longed to know the answer to, as so many plans for their future had depended on that little detail. While they had certainly hoped that what they'd had planned for the jewel would eliminate the risk of temporal separation, there had truly only been one way to find out, and while they'd both feared the possibility of losing each other, they'd also both longed to just hurry up and get it over with. They'd wanted the jewel complete, their questions answered. Even an unfavorable outcome would've been better than continuing to live in the dark, continuing to live in _fear_ of an unfavorable outcome. What they'd truly craved above all else was closure.

Fortunately, as it would turn out, another enemy of sorts, though nowhere near as powerful as Naraku, _had_ in fact also been collecting shards of his own. In the end, that little happenstance had only proven beneficial for our favorite couple, by literally cutting their workload in half and bringing their mission to an unexpected, yet desperately sought after climax. Suddenly, the time of facing their uncertainties had been thrust upon them, and without much warning.

**~~~Flashback~~~**

Tending to the small fire-pit, Inuyasha's thoughts were elsewhere as he absently listened for the sound of boiling water from within the kettle that sat on a rock in the fire. It'd been roughly eleven months since the defeat of Naraku, and they already had a little over half the jewel reconstructed. Kagome had learned long ago how to fuse their shards together, so now, whenever they found another shard, she merely added it to the jewel like assembling a puzzle.

A puzzle of unparalleled importance and unfathomable power.

It was getting a little frustrating that they hadn't found any more shards in the last few weeks, but the rest of them were obviously out there somewhere. Hopefully a few creatures would turn up soon, each one possessing a few shards, so they could hurry up and 'get this show on the road' as the saying from Kagome's time went. Then again, taking their current situation into consideration, Inuyasha thought he should probably amend his wish for shard-possessing baddies to suddenly show themselves. It could wait a few more days. Now would _not_ be a good time.

A light snore drew his attention to the far corner of the hut, and the hanyou couldn't help the way his lips curled up in a small, yet undeniable grin. Shippou was all tuckered out, having fallen asleep despite his earlier insistence of staying awake until Kagome's return.

A familiar and sometimes unwelcome pull on his youki captured his attention then, even before his sensitive ears registered the sound of gentle footfalls crunching in the thin layer of snow that blanketed the ground outside. While he no longer wanted the jewel for his own gain, its temptation still pulled on his aura, not that he was so weak that he would ever become overpowered by the thing. Magatsuhi's influence was practically nonexistent, as their half of the jewel was never permitted to darken, Kagome keeping the jewel around her neck and in her purifying influence at all times. The jewel's collective specter of darkness had only grown as powerful as he had thanks to Naraku's meticulous efforts to corrupt and taint the jewel with as much evil as possible.

Still, it wasn't as though the pure jewel was truly all that pure, luring lower youkai of all types for a chance at attaining its power. That was one of the reasons why they stayed at the village so rarely those days, wishing to protect its inhabitants should something come looking for their half of the jewel, with innocent human villagers getting hurt as a result. But tonight was a relatively peaceful night, and for that Inuyasha was tremendously grateful. The last thing they needed to worry about was fighting off a youkai attack while Kagome's assistance was so greatly needed elsewhere.

“How's she doing?” he asked his wife quietly, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb the sleeping kitsune child, as Kagome emerged in the doorway and made her way inside Kaede's hut.

“Very well, all things considered,” Kagome answered with a wistful smile. “The first baby always seems to take the longest, Kaede said,” the miko relayed before asking her husband, “Is the tea ready yet?”

“Just about,” Inuyasha answered, hearing the first telltale signs of bubbling water and quickly pulling the kettle from the fire before it started to whistle. That sound always hurt his ears.

Kagome, meanwhile, couldn't help but to stare in amazement as Inuyasha grabbed the metal pot without so much as flinching, when to barely touch the thing would have instantly burned the hand of a human. Inuyasha was truly remarkable.

Quickly pouring the hot water into the clay teapot that already contained the dried leaves and petals Kagome had mixed together, Inuyasha handed his wife the pot of pain-numbing tea she had asked him to make for Sango. The fire-pit in the monk and slayer's hut was a little overcrowded for the time being, as Kaede currently had a large caldron over its flame to keep a steady supply of sterilized rags at the ready.

After everything they'd been through as a group, Inuyasha still found it a little hard to fathom how their friends were about to become parents, even despite the fact that he'd known full-well of Sango's pregnancy over the last nine months. They certainly hadn't waited very long after the fall of Naraku, not that he could blame them when, just like he and Kagome, they had continued to travel the countryside as man and wife for nearly half a year, without having any of the privacy that such a status should have granted them.

Oh sure, there were the occasional nights at an Inn where they would get two rooms, presumably for the men and women to sleep separately, only to silently switch sleeping arrangements in the middle of the night. While Inuyasha and Kagome never braved being intimate in such a public environment, and truly couldn't have at those times anyway since they had kept the kitsune and nekomata with them to ensure their friends the utmost privacy available, said privacy hadn't been anywhere near as risky for the monk and slayer to indulge in, as the only thing they'd truly risked was discrediting Miroku's virtue in the eyes of the villagers he'd just scammed to get a free room. Not really the end of the world.

But after the fall of the dark hanyou, Miroku had immediately begun the assembly of a hut for himself and Sango to reside in permanently, having decided to make Kaede's village their home rather than attempting to rebuild his wife's old slayer village. That place was best left as a memento to all those who had lived and died so bravely. While Sango would never forget where she had come from, it had been time to look toward the future, rather than living in the past.

Under normal circumstances, Sango would have simply moved in with Miroku in his family's home, but he'd obviously had no such dwelling since they were both strangers to Kaede's village, although it had quickly become apparent that the locals wished for them to be strangers no longer. Miroku's construction of his and Sango's hut had been greeted with friendly words of welcome, the local men happy to assist with the building. It had taken a couple of months to complete, but all good things were worth the wait.

Now, approximately nine months later, Sango was giving birth to what Inuyasha was sure would be the first of _many_ children, as being a respectable husband and father-to-be had in no way curbed Miroku's lecherous behavior at least where Sango was concerned. Fortunately, for everyone's sanity and the monk's own well-being, Miroku had successfully given up flirting with _other_ women, and unlike Inuyasha, he had no reservations when it came to expressing his feelings for his wife in open, public settings. While that meant that an inappropriately wandering hand still earned him the occasional slap across the face, as Sango was a firm believer of _some_ things being reserved for the privacy of their own home, the slayer had never again possessed any doubt as to the sincerity of his feelings for her.

It was rapidly approaching dawn's first light by the time their son finally made his debut appearance into their world, and Miroku named the boy Shourio, because his birth truly was a victorious occasion. Shourio's very existence was the ultimate symbol of Miroku having acquired the life of a normal man, something he had always wanted but at the same time had feared would never be possible: a loving wife and family.

The following day, Inuyasha tried hard to mask his mild envy as he and Kagome headed back out in search of jewel shards yet again. While he had never been happier than he was now to have Kagome as his wife, the hanyou would admit to secretly wanting the life Miroku had finally achieved for himself. But if such an outcome truly awaited both he and Kagome, it would obviously have to be after the completion and purification of the Sacred Jewel, which was all the more reason to find the remaining shards as quickly as possible.

Their mission was suddenly cut short three days later when they responded to the desperate pleas of a frantic wanderer they happened upon while on the road, a man so relieved to see a miko that her hanyou companion was completely overlooked as he begged Kagome for her assistance. As it turned out, the man had fled his home village in fear when a powerful youkai lord recently took over, enslaving the men to build weapons, while enslaving the women for...other...purposes. Disgusted, Inuyasha for once didn't protest his wife's desire to detour from their need to find the shards in an effort to liberate the innocent villagers.

When they reached the village in question, however, it quickly turned out that their original mission to recollect the jewel shards, and their current goal of saving the enslaved human villagers, were actually one in the same. The 'youkai lord' that had taken over their village quickly turned out to be a human, a power-hungry warmonger who possessed quite an impressive collection of shards, himself. The man's preexisting dark and greedy nature had made it easy for Magatsuhi's influence to drive his own bloodthirsty desires, as the evil man intended to make use of his involuntary army of villagers to attack Edo castle.

The man also turned out to possess some mild spiritual powers of his own, which somehow enabled him to partially mask the presence of his shards from anyone else with the power to sense them, a trick Kagome actually found rather fascinating; it'd be a good trick to learn. While the miko could still plainly see precisely where he had the shards hidden within his body once standing face to face with the man, she hadn't been able to feel their pull on her aura until she and Inuyasha had already entered the village's borders.

Just passing by outside in the nearby forest, she would have completely missed sensing his jewel shards, and he had quite a lot of them, too. If she could learn how to utilize the same masking technique, it might mean fewer youkai attacks. This guy obviously wasn't bothered by lower youkai, although it was fortunate that he also didn't appear to employ their aid, as a certain other shard-crazed warmonger had once done. So instead of having another Naraku on their hands, it was more like having to deal with another Tokajin; most definitely the lesser of two evils.

Apparently, as it turned out, the man they were currently squaring off against had heard of the reappearance of the Sacred Jewel even back during the original ordeal with Naraku, but he'd also known enough at that time to not attempt seeking out even a single shard, lest he merely bring the dark hanyou's wrath upon himself, as he had also heard several tales of how anyone who interacted with Naraku inevitably wound up dead. Upon the dark hanyou's destruction, however, he had eagerly sought to collect as many shards of the re-shattered jewel as he could, wishing to grow in power almost as desperately as Naraku himself had, although he had no desire to sell his soul to lower youkai. Just like Tokajin, however, the man was truly no longer human, as his large collection of shards granted him youkai-like abilities of his own, which he then used to force himself on innocent villagers, both as an overlord, as well as in the more literal sense.

The battle was long and hard, but not as long and hard as the battle against Naraku had been. Realizing that they had a savior, two of them in fact, the stronger villagers also began banding together against their torturer as well, offering the hanyou and miko some much needed assistance in their battle with the very weapons their former 'master' had been training them to use.

While Inuyasha didn't hold anything back, he and Kagome were actually able to injure the man to the point of successfully removing each of his shards without first delivering the final deathblow. After making sure they had retrieved every single shard, reverting their once formidable foe back into nothing more than a mere mortal – a severely injured mortal at that – Inuyasha suddenly decided that killing the miserable bastard wasn't truly his place.

He wasn't really their enemy, after all. All they'd wanted was his shards, and they now had what they'd come for. The hanyou's partings words to the villagers were that the asshole was all theirs now, to do with as they pleased. Kagome cringed mildly in thought of what they would do to the poor bastard, but she wasn't angry with Inuyasha for deliberately leaving him alive to face their wrath; he truly had brought it on himself.

Infusing the man's confiscated shards into her own chunk of the jewel quickly and quite unexpectedly revealed that they were now in possession the _complete_ Sacred Jewel. No wonder they hadn't been able to find any other shards as of late, as apparently that man had been in possession of _all_ of them.

Their return trip to Kaede's was much slower than usual, as Kagome and Inuyasha both now had a lot of thinking to do. With one mission successfully over, they suddenly found themselves face to face with the last obstacle that stood between themselves and an inordinately long happily ever after.

**~~~End Flashback~~~**

Walking protectively by his wife's side as they headed indoors, Inuyasha stubbornly assisted Kagome as she sat down on the sofa, despite her continual protests that she was 'only pregnant'. She was constantly insisting that she wasn't sick, and that he needn't fuss over her so dramatically, although Kagome would secretly admit that his continual displays of affection were truly appreciated.

It wasn't anything she wasn't used to, after all. His already rather protective nature had just grown even more intense since her pregnancy. He'd always been overly protective of her, Kagome remembered, even back when he'd denied that he cared for her at all, insisting that his only reason for protecting her had been because she could sense the jewel shards. Once upon a time, she'd actually believed his little lie that she was only his shard detector, but Kagome had gradually realized the truth of how he'd merely used gruff insults to mask his deeper feelings, even back before he'd confessed his love.

Try as he had to hide his feelings from her, she'd seen how he'd truly felt on multiple occasions. How panicked he'd been when he'd thought both she and Shippou had fallen at the hands of the Thunder Brothers, their spirits lingering to say goodbye. How he'd sought comfort in her lap, as he'd lain dying of Spiderhead poison, confessing to having lied about hating her scent. How he'd smiled and returned the gesture of holding her hand when she'd confessed her desire to remain by his side, despite his obligations to Kikyou. How guilty he'd always looked whenever he caught the sadness in her eyes after he'd been to see the undead miko.

Then there was the time he had deliberately chosen not to seek out Kikyou, upon hearing Kagome's side of things regarding how she had purified her preincarnation of Naraku's miasma. He'd stated that if she'd saved her, then that was good enough for him to know, choosing to stay with Kagome because of how upset she'd obviously been at the time, and knowing enough to realize that to leave her at that time would have only made everything that much worse. He had even demanded an apology when she had thoughtlessly snapped that she hated him, admitting that her words had been hurtful; an admittance that the others had taken as petty, but that Kagome had realized was truly significant.

The old him never would have confessed that her words had hurt him; he would have brushed off her statement as if he hadn't cared in the slightest. Instead, his demand for an apology, coupled by the fact that he had chosen to remain with her rather than seek out Kikyou, had openly broadcasted his connection to Kagome, in that he cared what she thought of him. That gesture had been appreciated almost as greatly as the time he'd shed tears for her sake, when she'd very nearly died from Mukotsu's poison.

Yes, looking back, there were all sorts of little things Kagome could think of that all added up to the grand conclusion that, even if he hadn't been 'in love' with her, he'd most certainly cared for her as a dear friend. That'd been the impression she'd been under when she'd braved inviting him to Eri's Halloween party two years back. The fact that he'd been aware of her feelings for _him_ had caught her off guard, but all things considered, she supposed it stood to reason that if she could see through his tough exterior to realize he really cared, then her feelings for him had probably been flashing above her head in bright neon lights.

Of course, ever since that fateful night exactly two years ago to the day, expressing their feelings for one another had become a _lot_ easier.

“Do you need anything to drink?” Inuyasha tenderly asked his wife, uncaring of her two girlfriends who were currently reeking of both happiness and envy as they observed his interaction with their childhood friend.

Neither Yuka nor Eri felt resentful toward Kagome for her having found such a caring husband, but they did long for the same type of relationship for themselves. While Ayumi and Hojo had been going steady for roughly a year now, neither of the other two girls had had much luck in the way of serious, lasting relationships.

All three women had also been a little hurt, at first, when they'd learned that Kagome was actually _married_ to the man they'd only thought of as her boyfriend, but they'd eventually forgiven her for keeping such a huge secret considering her husband's _other_ secret. The way Kagome had explained it, she'd made it obvious how they couldn't have been invited to the wedding when, at the time, they'd still remained in the dark regarding her husband's _species_. How exactly would he have explained wearing his hanyou 'costume' to his own wedding?

They had conceded to her logic, and at least they were aware of his half-demon status now, as Kagome hated keeping such important things from her friends. The two women currently present had both proven just how loyal they truly were as friends when they'd continued to remain playfully envious over her 'perfect' relationship, Inuyasha's youkai blood being completely irrelevant to what a wonderful husband they still saw him as. They were envious of Kagome, but in a _good_ way. They were genuinely happy for her, and it was for that reason that Inuyasha didn't mind showing his affection for his wife while in their company.

In fact, it was probably because they _were_ watching that Inuyasha was laying it on extra thick, knowing well of the reputation he'd used to have amongst Kagome's school friends. While he might still be a possessive, jealous, violent (toward his enemies) jerk, he most certainly _wasn't_ a two-timer, and he most certainly wasn't a danger to Kagome, in any sense of the word. He knew well how some men, especially those in his own era, treated their wives. He would never hurt Kagome physically _or_ emotionally.

Kagome knew that, and now, so did her friends. Inuyasha would literally give his life to save her own, so the concept that he was 'no good' for her had quickly been thrown out the proverbial window. Because the other girls were now all aware of the fact that he was an inu-hanyou, his domineering and possessive nature suddenly made perfect sense. He openly confessed to the thought of willfully (and happily) dismembering anyone who would either cause Kagome harm or even merely threaten to take her away, but he would never, _never_ direct his wrath towards Kagome herself. She was his everything.

Said miko, answering her husband's question by admitting that she'd like a soda, smiled at the way Inuyasha merely nodded before turning to head into the kitchen. While he still had no idea how a refrigerator actually _worked_ , he knew that it was the magical cold box in which food was kept fresh for much longer periods of time, and that was good enough for him to retrieve for her an ice cold can of soda, which he then proceeded to pop open for her upon his return. The simple gesture reminded Kagome of how he'd done the same thing for her at Eri's party two years back, which had been much more significant on the 'affection' scale when you considered the fact that, at that time, they had not yet been involved romantically.

It was little things like that that showed what type of a person Inuyasha truly was, when he let his guard down, and dropped the 'I'm a bad ass and you better not mess with me' routine. Inuyasha might think of himself as an abomination, mostly because that was all he'd heard others call him while growing up, but as far as Kagome was concerned, her husband was literally a gift from the kami themselves.

She didn't care that he was half youkai, and in fact, the miko had downright convinced herself that she loved him even more because of it. While her love and attraction for him in no way diminished during his human night, she had simply fallen in love with the man that she knew day in and day out, and that man had triangular dog-ears peaking from a nest of silvery white mane, and razor sharp talons that could offer her the most tender of tickling caresses one minute, and fiercely maim and dismember a dangerous foe the next.

There was no way in any of the eight hells that she would have _ever_ wanted to use the jewel to turn him human, as had been the desire of her preincarnation. They had actually discussed it shortly after getting married, Inuyasha having voiced his concerns regarding the difference in their life spans, and wondering if she would prefer for her husband to grow old with her rather than having him remain the same as she became older and older. Inuyasha had been willing, he'd told her, because he hadn't thought at the time that he'd be able to just stand back and watch the love of his life wither away without him, and sharing in her mortality would've been better than doing nothing about it at all.

Fortunately, that had _not_ been the outcome of their final wish on the completed jewel, Kagome thought with a whimsical smile as she quietly sipped her soda while half-listening to Yuka and Eri discuss their plans for that night's festivities.

Back when they had had that much needed conversation, Inuyasha had been reluctant to voice his alternative plan, at first, what he'd truly wanted to do with the jewel, fearful of her reaction to the suggestion. So it was no surprise when Kagome had shocked her hanyou beyond words when she had not only agreed to the idea, but had literally squealed for joy at the very notion, throwing herself into his arms in a fierce, loving embrace, in front of some passing villagers no less, as he'd voiced the option while standing outside of Kaede's hut. Once he'd gotten over the initial shock that she actually loved him _enough_ to want to stay by his side for multiple centuries, rather than merely a few decades, he'd been so overjoyed that he'd returned her embrace, whispering how deeply he loved her, uncaring of who might observe them.

Even Miroku hadn't had a teasing word to deliver after such a display, never before having seen his hanyou friend so utterly happy, and knowing how greatly the demonic man had truly needed a ray of happiness in his life.

Of course, since that discussion had taken place shortly after the couple had originally wed, everyone had known that their moment of cheerfulness was short-lived with such an uncertain outcome still before them. While Kagome and Inuyasha had figured out what _they_ wanted to do with the jewel, what the souls within the jewel agreed to cooperate on was another matter entirely.

Snapping out of her wandering thoughts upon realizing someone was calling her name, Kagome sheepishly apologized and asked Eri to repeat herself. Kagome's friend wanted to know if she and Inuyasha would actually be staying for the candy-handing-out portion of the evening, and after a quick nod of agreement from her mate, Kagome happily told Eri that yes, they would be staying to help them deliver the evils of sugar highs upon the youth of Japan. She even threw in an overly cliché laugh of diabolical evil for extra panache, which earned the miko duel sets of rolling eyes from both Eri and Yuka, while Inuyasha merely chuckled to himself in mild amusement, simply happy to see his wife so happy.

While part of him didn't want to share Kagome on what she'd come to call their 'anniversary', the truth was that passing out candy wouldn't really take very long. Hanging out at Eri's for the first couple of hours of nightfall wouldn't hinder the miko's plans for their evening in the slightest, as Tokyo, much like New York, was a city that never slept.

Later into the night, after handing out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters, Kagome had plans to take Inuyasha out for a leisurely stroll through some of the city, just for something to do. She was sure they would probably stumble upon a block party or two that they could crash for a few minutes of fun, and there were also a few all-ages clubs that they would be able to enter without Inuyasha needing a valid ID. Kagome might've been seven months pregnant, but she was a lot tougher than your average human those days, thanks to the demonic energy flowing through her ki. There was no way she would allow them to miss tonight's opportunity, pregnancy or no.

Halloween was their cloak of normality, the one night out of the year in which Inuyasha could be treated like a normal human being by the world at large while still retaining his hanyou senses. While they had gone on a couple of 'dates' in the last year during the night of the new moon, Kagome knew that Inuyasha was never very comfortable interacting in public while in his human form, not that she hadn't been nervous herself, though for an entirely different reason. Kagome had been worried that during one of their dates they'd bump into one of her three girlfriends from school, or Hojo, and then she'd have to try to awkwardly explain why she appeared to be cheating on Inuyasha, without revealing the secret of his human night.

Inuyasha, on the other hand, hadn't given a rat's ass what her friends might've thought, had they ever spotted them, which they never had, but if they'd needed to tell her friends about the new moon, so be it. He had simply hated the idea of being out in public while so vulnerable, in its entirety. Even though he knew that Kagome's time was much safer than his century, generally speaking, it had since been established that youkai, or at least certain species of youkai, _did_ still exist in her world. He absolutely loathed the idea of being out in public while mortal, and thus being unable to protect her and their unborn child should anything happen.

Sure, Kagome had attempted to assure him that the various remaining youkai must have been fairly peaceful, overall, otherwise the human world at large would still know of their existence, as word of youkai attacks would be all over the news. But, on the other hand, it was also true that there were always the occasional unsolved murders, or rare 'disappearances' of somebody who was never seen or heard from again. Most of the time, it was probably only a human criminal that had been responsible for the heinous acts, but Inuyasha refused to take any chances. Kagome was a very powerful miko, after all, so for all they knew, her aura could be functioning as some sort of a beacon to lure and temp the hiding youkai who would ordinarily leave everyone else alone.

Her aura definitely stood out to him in such a way those days, considering it radiated with the harmonious combination of both reiki and youki, a merger that was rarely accomplished so successfully. It had been a tremendous risk on Kagome's part, but the only way to successfully accomplish what both she and Inuyasha had so desperately wanted to do with the jewel.

Once they'd returned to the village with the completed, perfectly round bobble hanging around Kagome's neck, Kaede had immediately jumped on them to purify the thing as quickly as possible, as if that hadn't already been their intention, but the elderly miko had had a valid point.

After all, the completed jewel pulsed in a way that a few measly shards, or even a lot of shards for that matter, never had. It literally _screamed_ temptation to youkai for miles around, but fortunately, they'd been in less of a diabolical situation as soon as Kagome had managed to learn the trick she'd been inspired to try from the man who had possessed the remainder of the shards, creating a barrier around the jewel that had successfully masked its presence at least from the lowly, beastly youkai of the world, who were the most likely to seek its power.

That way, their village had at least been protected from the hordes upon hordes of virtually brainless lesser youkai all seeking the jewel on instinct, as had been the scene Inuyasha remembered from the days when Kikyou had been its guardian. No one had been happier than he was to have finally had the thing put back together again, but the last thing Inuyasha had wanted to do was then spend the rest of his life defending it.

Kagome had known what she'd wanted to do beyond a shadow of a doubt, but _how_ to do it had been another matter entirely. It'd taken some time to meditate on. The jewel had contained both good and evil, after all, and to use its power for a selfish purpose was to strengthen its negative aspects. But while Kaede had voiced her concerns for the young miko's safety at such a risky endeavor, she had also conceded that in her own personal opinion, Kagome's desire had definitely stemmed from a place of love. She hadn't wanted to become virtually immortal merely for her own personal gain, but because she was married to a man who already, naturally possessed such a lifespan, and her love for him was so strong, her heartache at the thought of dying centuries before him so intense, that she was willing to _sacrifice_ her humanity, her purity as a miko, merely to stay with him.

Not only that, but their inherent fear that the well would no longer function as a two-way portal also meant that Kagome had said her farewells to her family forever, or at least for the next five hundred years, having told them of her plans to remain with Inuyasha in his time, permanently. When viewed from that perspective, taking note of all that she had truly been giving up in order to be with him, the wish had become selfless, and the powers within the jewel had reached a conclusion.

A conclusion that had shocked and frightened everyone present.

Kagome had thought, at the time, that she would merely utilize the power of the jewel the way everybody else always had. It was an object of extreme power, after all, so she'd figured that she could merely take its power within herself, like some sort of energy-boost, not really giving consideration to the fact that there were souls within the jewel capable of conscious thought. She'd figured that absorbing the jewel's essence would make her more powerful, just as it did with youkai, and how Inuyasha had originally wanted to use it to become a full fledged youkai himself back in the before time.

The jewel had agreed to grant her her wish, but not in the way that she'd planned.

Logically, the only way to give Kagome the lifespan of a youkai was to give her the life _force_ of a youkai, which was half of the jewel's very essence. The soul of Midoriko had approved of this because with her enemies no longer encompassed within the jewel with her, she would finally be free to transcend into the afterlife, and perhaps even one day be reincarnated. So even though Kagome was making use of the dark forces of the jewel, as opposed to the light that was Midoriko, the jewel as a whole was still purified from the act, simply ceasing to exist as its inner most components were separated from one another.

As for the youkai within the jewel, the collective consciousness once known as Magatsuhi had still been very much muted, the jewel far too pure for him to have taken any form or hold any real power, Kagome's light successfully keeping his blackness at bay. But at the same time, it had been his essence, the combined forces of the collective youkai he was comprised of, which had fueled the power of Kagome's wish. What everyone had bore witness to as the jewel had suddenly begun to glow upon the completion of her silent meditation, was a dark mist of crackling jyaki escaping its confines to join itself with Kagome's very being. In a sense, though he had no conscious power of his own, Kagome had taken Magatsuhi within herself.

The force had knocked her unconscious, and for a moment everyone around her had stopped breathing as panic slowly began to set in. What had happened? Had something gone wrong? Had it been a trick? Would she become ruled by the youkai of the jewel, just as Onigumo had become Naraku, his original mind and heart forever lost to the desires of the youkai who had fooled him into willingly selling his soul?

As Kagome had lain unconscious, a million thoughts had run through everyone's minds, but none more intensely than in Inuyasha's, who could literally _smell_ the difference within her. She'd still smelled like Kagome, but also, she'd suddenly smelled like the jewel, too. That was the only way he'd thought to describe it. What if, when she woke up, she was possessed? What if Magatsuhi hadn't been as weak as they'd thought and he'd somehow managed to take over her mind? What if the whole thing had somehow been a plot he'd been thinking of while they'd been collecting his shards, just biding his time as they worked, knowing of her desire and planning on using it to trick her? What if Kagome was lost to him forever? He would have rather had her for a few decades than to lose her after only sixteen months...

The hanyou had barely resisted the urge to touch her, only holding back for fear of what physical contact with a being of youkai blood would do to her in her current condition, while the squirming kitsune attempting and failing to break free from his grasp hadn't thought that much through, Shippou merely crying his eyes out that something was wrong with Kagome. He could see what was happening just as Inuyasha could, as well as Miroku and Kaede. Even Kirara seemed transfixed, as her mistress was the only one left out of the loop, since Sango lacked the ability to physically see holy and demonic auras.

Miroku had quickly filled her in, however, of how Kagome's aura had seemed to be literally merging with the secondary aura that had just encroached itself upon her from the jewel. It hadn’t truly appeared as though either aura was attempting to overpower the other, but rather, that the two were simply becoming one, which left everyone horribly uncertain of the eventual outcome. But fortunately, when Kagome finally opened her eyes it had instantly become apparent that _she_ was the one in control, as she'd merely blinked and looked around in mild shock and confusion, surprised to find everyone hovering over her and wondering how she'd come to be lying on the ground.

She'd asked Inuyasha in a meek, slightly worried tone of voice what had happened, and as soon as her husband and friends had heard her question, they'd known that she was still the same Kagome they'd come to cherish over the years. Inuyasha had let go of Shippou at that point, and the miko had suddenly found herself in the middle of a fierce embrace, her unofficial adoptive son on one side, and her husband on the other.

While the youki of the jewel had entered her body, the reiki of the jewel, namely Midoriko, had drifted up toward the heavens, much like the light of Kikyou's soul upon the undead miko's departure. Kagome already possessed her own reiki, after all, and therefore she'd had no need of absorbing the ancient miko's energy, essentially taking over for Midoriko when it came to keeping Magatsuhi at bay. The balance of the pure and evil forces from the jewel was now maintained within her own body, but it was not a constant struggle. Her aura naturally kept itself as pure as her aura had always naturally kept the jewel shards pure, without any conscious effort on her part.

Magatsuhi also had no power over blocking her miko powers. The small seal that had been placed upon her at birth had only been successful because she'd been too weak as an infant to fight the influence of his spell, and even then it had been blatantly obvious that his seal hadn't been as successful as he'd planned when, despite Hitomiko's inability to sense Kagome's spiritual powers, she'd still been able to utilize said powers, at least to some degree.

Then later, the stronger seal he'd been able to place on her had only been possible because he himself had grown so much more powerful, because the jewel, at that time, had been almost entirely black, the only speck of light having existed separately within Kohaku's shard. It was the other way around, now, though the jewel itself truly no longer existed. But if it still did, in some way, if Kagome herself was in a sense a living representation of the Shikon jewel, then the tiniest speck of almost unnoticeable darkness that was the demonic part of her aura was constantly surrounded by unwavering, shimmering light.

She was still a miko, but to anyone else with spiritual powers, the youki of her new aura was unmistakable, and she'd quickly earned herself the hateful title of 'Kuromiko' by a few random strangers. They still responded whenever anybody showed up asking for help slaying a youkai, which still happened on occasion as it'd been long established by that time that a powerful miko, as well as a slayer and a monk, and even a 'friendly' hanyou, all lived at that village and would answer the call to help others. It wasn't a job description they'd deliberately sought to advertise, but word of their past good deeds had spread quickly over the years.

Most people that sought them out had nobody else of spiritual powers at their disposal, hence the reason for their need of the inu-tachi's aid in the first place, which obviously meant that Kagome received no persecution from those people. But every once in a while they'd come across somebody on the road who couldn't keep their opinions to themselves, especially since it was usually only Kagome and Inuyasha alone who responded to the requests for aid after the jewel's completion, since Sango was obviously unavailable as a new mother, and Miroku usually wished to remain by his wife's side, unless the monk thought that the situation specifically called for a man of his training.

While Kagome had learned how to make a few different types of ofuda over the years, she was admittedly nowhere near as knowledgeable in the art as Miroku was, nor did she know how to make things like shikigami. If she even attempted such a feat now, thanks to her demonic aura, most people would probably freak out that she was casting some sort of evil spell, automatically assuming that she meant them harm, just like the prejudice her husband had always faced his whole life.

Fortunately, Kagome hadn't really been fazed by the hateful words of random villagers she didn't even know, focusing solely on the fact that the villagers at _home_ still accepted her, just as they had accepted her husband. She had already gotten used to being called a dark miko by strangers by that point, after all, so what did it matter if the title was suddenly true? Of course, Inuyasha had promptly bitten her head off at such a casual remark, but Kagome had merely shrugged her shoulders and stated with finality that, by definition, she really _was_ a kuromiko, but that it didn't necessarily make her evil, any more than he was evil for merely being a hanyou.

Kagome was, in a sense, exactly what Tsubaki had become. She still possessed her miko abilities, but she had taken the very essence of youkai within herself, and as a result, she'd gained much more than merely an extended lifespan. She could feel it within herself; she was powerful, but the difference between herself and Tsubaki was that she had no intention of ever using her demonic powers for evil. She would no more go about casting evil spells of dark magic than Inuyasha would up and decide to slaughter a random village of innocent farmers. He certainly had the ability to do so, physically, but it was his heart and mind that prevented him from carrying out such an unthinkable act of evil, and the same went for Kagome and her spiritually based youkai-like abilities, as well.

One positive thing, Inuyasha had to admit, was that he felt more confident in his wife's ability to protect herself, now, especially from those who would wish to do her harm merely for the company she kept. He'd gradually been easing up on his insistence that he needed to be there to protect her...at least until the day, roughly a month after the completion of the jewel, when she'd suddenly announced that she was pregnant. As if completely forgetting that his wife now possessed the strength of a youkai, and was, in a subtle way, a self-made hanyou of sorts, his protective nature had instantly kicked into overdrive, and he'd been hovering over her ever since. Not that Kagome truly minded all that much.

Applying a few ghostly appliqués to Eri’s front windows, Kagome couldn't help but to smile at the pleasant memories of all that had changed in the last year, much more so than the year before that. They had finally done what they'd set out to do, completing and purifying the Sacred Jewel, even if their methods had been a little unorthodox. But to be perfectly honest, Kagome didn't mind her demonic power boost in the slightest. While she'd originally thought that, despite her increased lifespan, she would still for the most part be a 'weak' human – by her husband's definition – it had quickly turned out that that wasn't the case.

She had youkai within herself, now, so she _was_ , in a sense, a self-made hanyou just as Naraku had been. The only real difference was...she wasn't evil. She wasn't evil, and she chose not to utilize most of the powers she possessed because to do so would most likely corrupt her aura if she allowed herself to become consumed by the desire for power, just as Inuyasha could theoretically lose himself to the bloodlust of his youkai half if he wasn't careful. All Kagome had wanted was to live as long as Inuyasha would, and she'd gained that ability, hands down. The fact that she was no longer susceptible to getting sick as easily as other humans, and that she healed just as fast as her husband did from physical injury, was a pleasant added bonus that she had no intention of complaining about.

Inuyasha didn't mind it, either. His only fear had been whether or not Kagome was still Kagome, but once it'd become apparent that her heart and soul had remained unchanged, he too had only looked at the changes of her body as a good thing. Thinking of what the women were discussing with that night's upcoming holiday, the hanyou smirked to himself at the pun he'd just come up with. Trick or treat, indeed.

He had feared, for a brief moment, that Kagome's solution for his wish, to directly take the jewel's power within herself, had been a trick concocted by the jewel itself, but it'd quickly turned out that the evils of the jewel had in fact been powerless over her, as her natural strength of purity easily kept them at bay. Magatsuhi might have been eager to get out of the jewel, but he was now forever dormant, sleeping away his existence while Kagome's body unconsciously utilized the strength of his demonic abilities. So in the end it had turned out not to be a trick after all, but rather a wonderful, wonderful treat. Kagome was still his Kagome, only...stronger.

While Inuyasha admittedly didn't understand the concept of asking a question such as “Trick or treat?” the desired answer was obvious. Everybody wanted the 'treat', and speaking of, the smell of all that chocolate was making his mouth water, even through the wrappers.

“No chocolate,” Eri teased with a smile, playfully slapping Inuyasha's clawed hand as he made a grab for the Mini-Hershey bars she was dumping into a bowl.

“Feh!” he growled, albeit playfully, as he attempted to snatch a bar or two without her notice. The human woman was quick, however, and whirled around with the bowl to her chest before her friend's husband could claim his prize.

“Too much chocolate will make dogs sick,” Yuka explained with a chuckle at Inuyasha's forlorn expression.

“Bah...” he voiced, waving off their concern. “I ain't a _mortal_ dog. I'm half youkai, and youkai don't _get_ sick.”

Giggling, Eri turned back around and held out a peace offering of two of the mini bars. “Okay, you can have a couple, but these are for the kids anyway, sheesh.”

Glancing in his wife's direction for moral support proved futile, as Kagome was too busy snickering to herself at his display.

“I'm sure Inuyasha can handle chocolate just fine,” she finally said in her husband's defense, although she immediately added, “But that candy _is_ for the children, Inuyasha.”

Her mate's cheeks tinted a light pink at being chastised by three women for the way he'd suddenly made a grab for the confection, but it smelled so good, damn it!

“Well, I better get into costume,” Kagome commented then, as she made to get up from the couch.

Inuyasha was by her side in an instant, the chocolate completely forgotten as he insisted she take his hands so that he could help her stand up.

“Do you need any help changing?” he asked her then, his voice completely void of any hentai undertones as he genuinely only wanted to know if she required his assistance with her dressing.

Glancing down over herself and the maternity clothes of her time that she was currently wearing, Kagome knew that she could easily get out of her baggy blouse and skirt and into her hime robes by herself, since the 13th century-styled ensemble didn't include a wide obi tied in the back, but she nodded her desire for Inuyasha's assistance all the same. She just couldn't bear to crush the hopeful look in his eyes, as she knew he needed to feel needed. Besides, just because she wasn't suffering from the standard aches and pains of pregnancy didn't mean that her giant belly didn't still get in the way from time to time, and it would probably be much easier to have Inuyasha assist her with her itsutsu-ginu kouchiki costume, anyway.

The first two layers of her outfit were simple, and greatly resembled the standard miko garb that she usually wore in the past, the main difference being that she was not wearing a chihaya over her white narrow-sleeved kosode. Her baggy red hibakama were tied on the side at her midriff like always, or what was left of her midriff, anyway. While Kagome felt a little weird wearing her pants hiked up practically to her breasts like that, she smiled at her husband's amusing words that, because she was so short, to tie the trousers any lower would turn them into naga-bakama, and she wasn't going for the 'long hakama' look with her outfit. She had a hard enough time walking those days as it was!

Her outer noblewoman's robes were long and elaborate, made in the style of dress that Inuyasha's mother used to wear, which consisted of a hitoe, topped by an itsu-ginu, topped by a ko-uchiki. Hard to walk in, indeed. The coloring was a deep, vibrant red, with a pattern of forest greenery and white birds decorating the silk.

For that year's Halloween, they had decided to go as the dog-demon and his wife, a classic tale from her time, with several customized twists of their own, including her elaborate dress of 13th century nobility. When she'd first breached the subject of possibly going as the legend, Inuyasha had blinked at her, being unfamiliar with the fable, and had asked bluntly for clarity if she'd meant that she wanted them to go as his parents.

Freaking out thinking that she'd hit a sore spot, Kagome had immediately started to backpedal, until Inuyasha had silenced her with a gentle kiss and proceeded to whisper how beautiful he knew she'd look in his mother's robes, especially since she was carrying his child. That had given her the idea to go ahead and unofficially mimic his parents, since it was all right with him, since the legend of the dog-demon and his wife didn't specify what century they lived in or what the woman was wearing when the lost traveler found their cabin in the woods.

Working both from memory, from back when Sesshoumaru had pulled that stunt with the un-mother, as well as Inuyasha's own physical description of his mother's garments, Kagome, with much assistance from _her_ mother and her mother's sewing machine, had taken the time to make that year's costume by hand, with material from a fabric store, rather than merely tossing some cheap Halloween Store accessories together with a standard-issue yukata, or wearing the miko garb from the past that she actually considered everyday clothing by that point.

It was clear from the look of her hime robes that she'd put a great deal of time and effort into their construction, and it was also clear from the expression on Inuyasha's face as he assisted her with applying each layer that the significance of the gesture had not been lost on him.

They had only been married for two years, but already he could easily tell how his love for her merely continued to grow with each passing year, each passing month, week, day, hour... And he had centuries of her companionship to look forward to. The hanyou didn't know what he could have possibly done for the gods to have granted him such a wondrous reward, but he swore every day that he would cherish her presence in his life, forever.

Kagome's thoughts were running along similar lines as she caught her husband's expression in Eri's bedroom mirror, as he assisted her with the finishing touches of her outfit. You wouldn't know it to look at the gruff wild man, but Inuyasha really did know how to layer a noble kimono. He had been raised in higher society for the first few years of his life, after all, and some things had simply stuck with him throughout his long life of solitude afterwards. How his mother's clothing had always looked as each layer was applied was one of them, an image that would forever remain engraved in his mind, and an image that his wife's current ensemble emulated perfectly. The only difference was the coloring, which she had chosen to match his own robes.

Kagome was just about to break the silence that had grown between them when the sound of the front door sliding open did it for her, followed shortly by the harmonious inquiry of “Trick or treat?” by at least three different children. Her husband adopted a thoughtful look on his face as he rested his hand on her rounded belly, before murmuring, “Come on, Okaa, let's go greet the children.”

Smiling, Kagome followed Inuyasha back out into the living room.


	2. Trick or Treat?

Chapter 2 – Trick or Treat?

A witch, a princess, a dinosaur...whatever _that_ was, looked like a type of youkai to him. Inuyasha quickly lost track of all of the different types of costumes he saw the human children dressed up in merely in order to receive free candy from strangers, an act that was apparently taught to be an extreme no-no the rest of the year. Go figure.

“Trick or treat!!”

But he did enjoy this holiday.

“Bwah!” he yelled, jumping out from around the corner just as the children finished grabbing their pieces of chocolate from the bowl on the entry table.

High-pitched screams mixed with laughter filled the genkan, as the children all scrambled over themselves to leave Eri's house as quickly as possible, their frantically pounding hearts threatening to fly from their chests as giant smiles rested hidden behind mask-covered faces. Grinning to himself, a look that made him even more threatening as it showed off his glistening fangs, Inuyasha smirked at the lack of fear in the scents of the children’s parents waiting for them down at the end of the street. Ignorant fools; they had no idea what creatures truly still lurked among them. They were lucky he just plain ol' liked children, as opposed to liking them for dinner.

Admittedly, the words _Inuyasha_ and _liked children_ were among those that the hanyou had never thought would one day go together in the same sentence – at least not without the word _doesn't_ tossed in between – but the fact that he himself would be a father in a couple of months had truly worked wonders on his disposition regarding other people's offspring.

“Ooo, that was a good one,” Yuka commented as she entered the genkan, not that the hanyou hadn't heard her approaching footsteps a mile away. “Candy corn?” she offered, holding out a small bowl of the colorful pieces of formed sugar and wax.

His ears automatically lowered to his head at the reminder of what'd happened as a result of that 'candy corn' crap two years back, and he muttered a quiet, “Feh, no thanks,” in as polite a tone as possible, when all he really wanted to do was yank that bowl out of Yuka's hand and chuck it across the room. Yuka, remaining unaware of what'd happened to him as a result of the food fight at Eri's party the year before last, merely glanced up at his ears as they lowered, having remained fascinated by the appendages ever since the initial realization that they were real.

Seeing his wife's friend divert her attention to the top of his head, Inuyasha inwardly smirked, as he deliberately raised his ears erect and turned them both forward, honing in on the sound of Yuka’s quickening heartbeat.

The girl didn't fear him, and in fact, she was utterly fascinated by him, but Kagome had told her long ago that Inuyasha was a very private person, and didn't like talking about himself all that much. She supposed she could understand that, only vaguely being able to imagine how truly horrible life must have been for him growing up, having to constantly hide what he was from the people around him, not to mention how crazy their world must be to somebody with his advanced senses. He could probably still hear those same children as they continued to move door-to-door down the block, as well as the countless other Trick-or-Treaters that were happily running around the neighborhood.

Not to mention all the distant traffic noise, barking dogs, blaring music... Yuka wondered if he could even keep focused on it all, or if it just faded away into the background as white noise. Then again, she knew it would probably drive her nuts if she could hear all of that and _not_ be able to ignore it as insignificant background static, so she was sure that was probably the case with the hanyou before her, although, with the way his ears were currently focused directly on her, she was also sure that he could probably hear every noise _she_ was making with crystal clarity, even if to her own ears she was currently as silent as death.

“Ummm...how...how about some popcorn?” she asked him then. “Eri and Kagome are making a batch in the kitchen,” she explained, mentally berating herself for acting like a nervous fool.

Inuyasha merely raised an eyebrow at her, detecting her rising nervousness.

“What's up?” he asked her bluntly. “I know you don't fear me, so why so nervous all of a sudden?”

Yuka flushed at being called out on her behavior. No, she didn't fear him, and it wasn't truly as if she had a crush on him, either. He was her best friend's husband for crying out loud! But...he _was_ awfully attractive, and those ears...

_It's always the ears..._ Inuyasha mentally chuckled, catching Yuka's eyes wandering upward once more.

Releasing an exaggerated sigh of feigned exasperation, Inuyasha tilted his head down in Yuka's direction as though he were bowing to her as he stated, “Keh, go on already. I ain't gonna bite ya.”

Her eyes widened in instant understanding, then quickly setting down the bowl of candy corn she'd been holding, Yuka reached up with both hands and immediately began fondling his ears. They were very soft, and fuzzy, just like a puppy's ears! She didn't dare take advantage of his generosity, though, and she was just about to let go when Kagome's voice politely asking, “Popcorn?” startled not only her, but the hanyou as well.

Inuyasha's cheeks flushed a dark pink as he sprung up and away from Yuka's touch. Because she'd been rubbing his ears, he hadn't been able to hear Kagome's approach, but that was no excuse, he told himself. The miko in question couldn't help but to find the whole scene amusing, however, as she desperately tried not to laugh at her husband and friend acting as though they'd just been caught making out or something. Kagome knew damn well how fascinated Yuka was regarding Inuyasha's ears; she asked her about them constantly.

As for her husband, well, it wasn't as if his ears were a _private_ part of his body or something. Yes, his ears were technically an erogenous zone, but in reality it felt no different for him to have somebody pawing on his ears than it did for anybody else to have somebody touching their own ears. How anybody truly reacted to such contact all depended on _how_ it was done, and _whose_ hand it was.

“I was...that is...we were just...”

Kagome's laughter instantly silenced Yuka's babbling, and Inuyasha was just about to say something in the girl's defense when the audio appendages that were truly at fault twisted of their own accord, as he detected the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps out on the lawn.

“Incoming!” he stated instead, and everyone quickly scrambled to get out of the genkan so that the hanyou could do his thing.

“Kagome...” Yuka started to say once the girls were safely back in the living room.

“Don't worry about it,” Kagome brushed off, admitting a bit of actual history as she confessed, “The first time I saw Inuyasha, the very first thing I did was walk right up to him and tweak his ears.”

“Whoa...and he just _let_ you?” Yuka asked in bafflement, remaining unaware of the tiny detail that Inuyasha had actually been unconscious at the time.

Still, Kagome's mother had also done the same exact thing, and Inuyasha had been wide awake for that one, and he _had_ just stood there and let her. He'd probably been too shocked to protest.

Back by the entrance to the genkan, waiting just around the corner, Inuyasha smiled to himself at the memory evoked by his wife's words. Not that he had any recollection of Kagome tweaking his ears while he'd still been under Kikyou's sealing spell, but he remembered the night shortly after their wedding when she'd first confessed to having performed the act. He'd of course forgiven her for molesting his ears while he'd been asleep, especially considering that he'd wound up seeing her completely buck-ass naked just a few days later. He'd said that was an even trade in his book.

Of course, Kagome had playfully disagreed, and had demanded the right to tweak his ears again, to which he'd told her that she could molest his ears for as long as she wanted, so long as she did so buck-ass naked. She'd most definitely ended up naked that night, as had he, and if memory served, he was pretty sure that a few ear rubs had indeed been tossed in there somewhere.

Rutting like animals in the middle of the forest hadn't been the ideal setting that he'd wanted to provide for her, of course, but she'd been understanding of the circumstances, and at least they hadn't had to sneak off while worrying that someone from camp might catch them or realize what was going on. Miroku and Sango had known they were married, after all – plus they were also married, themselves – so whenever Inuyasha and Kagome had disappeared for a few minutes they'd known damn well the reason why, and they'd known damn well _not_ to follow them, too.

_That_ lesson had been drilled into Miroku hard and fast, and it'd had nothing to do with the hanyou's fist, but rather, threats of cold and lonely nights by the beautiful slayer who was also his wife. Sango had told her husband under no uncertain terms that he was to leave Kagome and Inuyasha alone when it came to their 'excursions' out into the woods from time to time if he also wanted to enjoy such _excursions_ for himself.

Inuyasha couldn't help but to smile to himself at the reminder of all that had changed between then and now, but quickly dropping his grin to get into character, he was ready for the children once they silently (to their human ears) slipped into the genkan, hoping to steal some candy without anyone noticing their presence, not that they were truly trespassing when Kagome had that big drippy 'Enter' sign hanging up on the front door.

He didn't want to risk truly frightening anyone too badly, at least not to the point of them missing out on their candy, so just like before, Inuyasha waited until he heard a piece of candy disappear from the bowl for every child accounted for in the entryway. It'd be a horrible guessing game for a human to attempt, but with his advanced senses, it was literally child's play, pun intended.

His nose clearly distinguished between the four different scents of the four different children currently present, not to mention how easily his ears picked up on their separate breathing and heartbeats. Yuka had been correct in her assumption that all of the other noises of the city just faded away into the background, but he was actually capable of remaining focused on several different and independent things at the same time when he needed to. Hearing the fourth piece of candy disappear, and catching the last of the four scents of anxiousness change into relief and joy, he coiled his leg muscles, and pounced.

Piercing screams filled the night as the children all dashed outside as quickly as humanly possible, while the distinct sound of laughter could be heard from an older child waiting somewhere outside, presumably from the person in charge of keeping an eye on that particular group of youngsters.

Straightening up from his crouch, Inuyasha allowed a small chuckle to audibly escape his lips. The children back in Kaede's village never reacted that way to his presence, but then again on the other hand, he had never jumped out at them with his claws and fangs bared and a snarl on his face that suggested he'd just found the perfect meal. Stepping forward to close the front door that the children had left wide open in their hasty departure, a single triangular ear turning to pick up the sounds from behind him was the only indication that he heard Eri's approach, though it was enough of one for the nineteen-year-old to know that he was aware of her presence.

“Are there any cool demonic tricks you can do to kick things up a notch?” she asked, this friend of Kagome's being less fascinated with his ears and more fascinated with the magical aspect of his entire being.

Shaking his head, Inuyasha answered, “Not any that wouldn't take a decent sized chunk out of your parents' house.”

Eri's eyes widened a bit at that revelation. Giant and destructive displays of youkai powers were probably _not_ a good idea , especially when her mother and father were actually home, merely watching TV in their bedroom to allow the 'kids' to have their fun. They still had no idea that Inuyasha's hanyou getup wasn't a costume.

“What if I draw out your youkai blood?” Kagome offered as she and Yuka both entered the doorway to the genkan, each with their own small bowl of buttery popcorn in hand.

“That's probably not a good idea,” her husband admonished. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Oh, nothing will go wrong,” Kagome said while waving off his concern, having complete confidence in herself and her ability to control Inuyasha's youkai blood. Her miko powers were at full strength, after all, and add her youkai powers on top of that...

“Famous last words,” Yuka teased, tossing a handful of buttery goodness into her mouth.

“Well, I suppose you could always use these if you needed to,” Inuyasha conceded, briefly tugging on his beads.

Kagome had again offered to remove the rosary after her absorption of the Sacred Jewel and the extra powers she'd gained as a result, but he'd once again refused, insisting that the subjugation necklace remain exactly where it was. His desire to keep the beads was in part sentimental, because after everything they'd been through over the years, the beads were yet another way in which they were connected. But in truth, Inuyasha's greatest fear was still that he might one day lose control over his youkai blood, for whatever reason, and even though Kagome was now strong enough to stop him with her miko powers should the need arise, he'd much rather only have his face slammed into the dirt then be forced to endure the pain of purification.

She could hardly fault his logic on _that_ one.

Kagome had promised to _only_ to use her powers on him as an absolute last resort, like if the rosary broke while trying to 'sit' him and he was still on a murderous rampage. If _that_ were the case, then he'd never forgive her if she _didn't_ zap him one to put an end to it. He already knew from personal experience that he could survive levels of purification that would be lethal to pureblooded youkai, a bizarre and unique benefit of being hanyou, he supposed.

“What are you guys talking about?” Eri asked, being both unaware of the purpose of the rosary, as well as what Kagome had meant when referring to drawing out his youkai blood.

“You'll see...” the miko answered cryptically, as she closed her eyes and began concentrating.

Kagome had since learned that she could draw out Inuyasha's youkai blood at will, just as the Tetsusaiga had done back when he'd been fighting Kanna's mirror-monster. She could pull his beast to the surface but leave his human heart and mind still in control. It was actually excellent practice for Inuyasha, learning to maintain control on his own while transformed, to help prevent the future possibility that he feared above all else, his youkai half running rampant. Usually, he wasn't so nervous about what she was doing, but then again, Kagome recalled with a smirk, she usually reserved this particular ability for more...intimate...activities. He was undeniably distracted at those times, and more or less just let her do whatever she wanted, not that he didn't thoroughly enjoy it himself.

Yuka and Eri both gasped at the visible field of energy beginning to glow around both Kagome and Inuyasha, but even more so, they were shocked at the physical changes their friend's husband was suddenly undergoing. His claws and fangs quickly and significantly lengthened, and dark purple jagged stripes appeared on each cheek just below his eyes. Said eyes suddenly snapped open in that moment to reveal a horrible demonic red glow, with eerily piercing blue pupils.

Thinking he'd have a little fun at their shocked faces, Inuyasha stood perfectly still, gazing between all three women menacingly, until the tiniest hint of nervous uncertainty began to creep itself into Kagome's scent. Maybe it _hadn't_ been a good idea to draw out his youkai blood while he wasn't being distracted by mating. What if a child showed up dressed as a youkai? Would he attack it?

“Inuyasha...?” she voiced hesitantly, mostly convinced he was just playing because she was sure she'd done the spell correctly, but still slowly beginning to wonder as he merely continued to stand there.

He didn't even move when the front door slid open once more, a pair of children merrily asking “Trick or treat?” only to run screaming as he slowly turned his crimson gaze in their direction. They left without any candy, but at least he didn't chase after them.

“Okay...I think I should reverse it now,” Kagome muttered aloud, and in that moment, his eyes snapped back to hers, and he lunged.

Inhaling to shout the subjugation command proved futile, as his hand was clamped firmly over her mouth long before she could have uttered the word.

“What's the matter?” he cooed in her ear, the extra timber of his full-youkai voice making him sound like the villain of every horror movie Kagome's friends had ever seen.

Yuka and Eri were both utterly petrified, terrified for their friend but at the same time knowing that there was absolutely nothing either of them could do except make matters ten times worse by trying to interfere.

“I thought you liked it when I came out to play,” he continued, sticking his tongue out and running it along the inner shell of her ear.

Despite herself, Kagome shivered at the contact before promptly fixing her husband with a glare to end all glares. She didn't fear him, no matter what form he was in. Smirking wickedly, the hanyou-turned-youkai locked eyes with his wife, and Kagome instantly saw the sparkle of recognition burning behind his crimson gaze. As frightening as his transformed appearance could be, she'd seen those red and blue eyes of his on several occasions by that point in their marriage, and thinking back to his first few transformations, from before they were married, the difference between his 'inu-youkai feeling passionate' gaze and his 'inu-youkai gone mad' gaze was night and day to the woman who knew him so well. When he removed his hand from her mouth, there was a playful note to her voice as she said, “Your 'Mr. Hyde' routine won't work anymore. I know it's you.”

Chuckling then, Inuyasha pulled back, and turning his eyes to meet her two panicking girlfriends, he comically shrugged, and then said “Boo.”

They actually both flinched for a second, before their fear scents simultaneously disappeared to be replaced with confusion, but there was no question, he'd gotten them. He'd gotten them _good_. Yup, he definitely loved this holiday.

“Whoa!” Yuka stated then, being the first to brave speaking after what'd just taken place. “How did...that is...you can...I mean...whoa!”

“How did you _do_ that?!” Eri translated, gesturing up and down with her hand to indicate Inuyasha's altered overall appearance.

Kagome figured she could share the secret of her husband's youkai blood without revealing that he sometimes also turned human, or that he was actually from the past, so she took that moment to tell a vastly rewritten version of how Goshinki originally broke the Tetsusaiga, and how it'd become apparent that the ancient sword, which had been 'passed down' to Inuyasha by his father, had in fact functioned as a seal of sorts, to help keep his youkai blood in check. His father had simply been so powerful that the pull of his youkai half was too strong for a half-human body to handle, and were it not for the Tetsusaiga, Inuyasha could have, at least back in the beginning, been reduced to a mindless bloodthirsty killing machine.

But Inuyasha was much stronger now, she explained, and he had much more power over his youkai blood, rather than his blood having power over him. Kagome also told them of how, with the Tetsusaiga's help as an anchor, he'd experienced his first transformation where his mind had remained clear. Because she was a powerful miko, she'd since learned how she could offer herself as the anchor his mind needed to stay focused, instead, enabling his youkai blood to rise to the surface without blackening his human heart.

“You make it sound like I'm the only one here with youkai blood, mate,” he purred so quietly that only Kagome, with her own advanced hearing, could hear him.

Granted, her ears were nowhere near as powerful as _his_ were, but her hearing was definitely more defined than your average human's since her merger with the Sacred Jewel's youkai.

He made a valid point, for Kagome could, in theory, lose herself to her youkai half just as he could, but her own miko aura was the only seal she needed to forever prevent that from happening. In order for her to actually lose control, something would have to hinder her miko powers.

Her youkai side could still rise to the surface in extreme cases of emotional stress, however. She knew that because she'd experienced it first hand, though her miko aura had still kept her mind balanced enough to not really lose it. The difference was unquestionable, like Inuyasha's earliest transformations sans Tetsusaiga versus the times his sword had actually assisted him with the power boost.

Of course, she could _willingly_ allow her youkai aura to dominate her, too, just like whenever Sesshoumaru assumed his true form, the daiyoukai's transformation into a giant dog being completely voluntary. She knew she could do it because she'd actually done so, though only once, calling upon so much of her miko aura that the strength of her demonic one had risen to compensate, and her mind had still been her own during that instance, as well.

Switching his own transformation on and off at the flip of a mental switch was an ability that Inuyasha had still yet to master, but his control was a hell of a lot better than it used to be, and in most cases, he was in fact the one who reverted himself back into his hanyou form, himself, after she had brought his youkai blood to the surface. Seeing that he was failing to do so in that moment, however, Kagome was just about to push Inuyasha's youkai blood back into dormancy herself when a snarling growl escaped his throat without warning, causing the miko to jump slightly and her two friends to cling to each other for support.

“Don't _do_ that _-_ ” Kagome began to protest, but she was instantly silenced by her youkai husband barking out, “Hush!” as he quickly ran outside.

Kagome was instantly on his heels, following Inuyasha out onto the lawn despite her tabi-clad feet. As soon as she stepped outside, she spotted him. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off after anyone or anything, instead remaining on Eri's property while appearing to sniff the air.

“What is it?” she whispered, suddenly wishing that she had her bow.

Shaking his head in mild confusion, Inuyasha finally answered, “Not sure,” as he continued to search the air for any unusual scents.

Something demonic had definitely brushed itself up against his heightened senses, as he was more sensitive to the feel of foreign youki while in his full-youkai form. Perhaps one of the reasons why he'd never before detected any youkai in Kagome's time was because he'd never before allowed himself to be in his transformed state for more than a few moments during sex. He was hardly in a position to be paying much attention to the world around him during _those_ times.

“Is everything all right?” Eri hesitantly asked from the doorway, and cringing at the way the girl flinched when he turned to face her direction, Inuyasha took that moment to clear his head and allow the feel of his wife's soothing aura to help calm the raging passion of his youkai blood, thus reversing his transformation.

He couldn't think straight while in his full-youkai form, anyway, bloodthirsty beast or no bloodthirsty beast. His canine instincts were much too close to the surface when he was like that, and he didn't want to risk damaging the bizarre comfort zone he'd managed to establish with her friends.

Fortunately, the way Yuka quickly exclaimed, “That was so cool!” quickly led the hanyou to believe that he hadn't permanently freaked out his wife's friends in the slightest.

“What had you so spooked?” Kagome asked him then, and shrugging in what he hoped was a nonchalant fashion, he answered, “Probably just another kitsune.”

“Another kitsune?” Yuka echoed, and Inuyasha was just about to tell the truth until the look in his wife's eyes stopped him from blabbing the secret of last year's haunted house. Like he gave a rat's ass if that stupid little punk lost all his points.

Oh well whatever.

“Keh, I've just seen a couple of kitsune around the city from time to time, is all,” he answered instead, and the way Kagome leaned against him in tender affection instantly made the small lie worthwhile.

Gently resting a clawed hand upon his wife's pregnant belly, Inuyasha smiled broadly at the feel of the baby tapping against his hand from within, before gesturing toward the house and saying, “Come on, Okaa, let's get you back indoors.”

“Actually,” Eri spoke up then, “the night's probably just about over as far as the Trick-or-Treaters go, so if you two wanted to go ahead and head out now to enjoy the rest of your evening together, Yuka and I can clean up here.”

Yuka adopted a comical look of disgust, having hoped to avoid getting stuck with the 'clean-up' duty, but at the same time she definitely didn't want to stick their friend with the dirty business, so instead she agreed with Eri as she said, “Yeah, Kagome, you two go and have fun. We can take care of any late stragglers that show up begging for candy.”

Smiling, Kagome thanked her friends for their generosity and hospitality from throughout the entire evening. She just had to step inside the genkan to retrieve her sandals from the getabako, since she'd rushed outside without them in her hurry to see what Inuyasha had sensed. Once her lacquered zori were gracefully in place, she and Inuyasha were off, leisurely heading down the street to find their own private little adventure for the remainder of the night.

Inuyasha was very conscious of his wife's pregnancy, and he refused to let Kagome over do it, but the fact of the matter was that she _was_ much stronger than the average human now, and so as long as she insisted that she felt just fine, he had no choice but to believe her. He knew that Kagome would never take any unnecessary chances with their unborn child and would tell him the instant she felt the need to rest, or to return to the shrine.

Walking down the sidewalk with his beloved by his side, Inuyasha couldn't help but to keep glancing her way. Kagome's appearance in hime robes literally took his breath away. She was so stunning, and it didn't disturb him in the slightest that she bore a resemblance to his mother dressed like that. The image of 'mother' fit Kagome perfectly, considering she herself was about to become one. That was _his_ child growing within her swollen belly, his seed and her body that had created life beyond their own.

It was truly no wonder how Kagome had ended up becoming pregnant so quickly after the completion of the jewel. After all, at the time they'd believed that they could no longer pass through the well, so it had only been a matter of days, as the timing had turned out, that she'd run out of those 'pills' she had been taking to prevent pregnancy. Because everything had finally come a close, the first chapter of their lives over and done with, Inuyasha had seen no reason to continue holding off on the family they'd both so desperately wanted, and she had agreed, so they'd purposefully not bothered avoiding her time of fertility.

Even so, that hadn't necessarily meant that she was going to get pregnant right away, and he'd been more than a little surprised when he'd noticed the change in her scent so quickly. Informing his wife of what he'd detected, able to tell so early thanks to his youkai senses that were still more advanced than her own new ones were, it'd definitely been a happy occasion, the miko just as surprised but equally overjoyed.

Construction of their own hut hadn't taken as long as Miroku and Sango's dwelling, mostly because he was half youkai and could do much more work more quickly, but even so, assistance from the village carpenters had still been required, as he'd lacked the knowledge of how to properly construct a home all by himself. That said assistance had been so readily supplied had been astounding in its own right, since it was sometimes still hard for him to accept that the villagers accepted him, but he had been humbly grateful.

Most of the villagers had simply gotten used to Inuyasha by that point, and in such a small community there was truly no keeping any secrets, so everyone had known that the couple had been holding off on building their own home until after the completion and purification of the jewel, and everyone had been happy for them when their sacred mission had finally come to a close. Inuyasha and Kagome's hut had been built away from the village proper, on the other side of the shrine near the Goshinboku, so those who might have secretly felt uncomfortable having a hanyou truly living as a member of their community at least hadn't needed to worry over seeing him walking around town from day to day, as he'd had no intention of becoming that intertwined with everyday village life.

He didn't feel like an outcast at all to have his and Kagome's dwelling rest so far from the others, and in fact, he appreciated the privacy. The location of their hut had been his decision, not the villagers’. Inuyasha had never felt all that comfortable in large crowds, after all, and living in the center of town would've made him too nervous, like the villagers had them surrounded. He had definitely appreciated that they'd welcomed him, though, when they could have easily ordered 'the beast' and 'his whore' to leave their village. Instead, everyone had continued to call the surrounding forest by his name, and he'd more or less been acknowledged as the village protector. Therefore, Inuyasha living at the border of the forest made perfect sense to them, and those who would not have felt disgusted to have had him as an active member of their neighborhood had understood his desire for solitude and had taken no offense at his self-imposed isolation.

Inuyasha hadn't known what he would've done had the villagers rejected his marriage to Kagome, or his fathering of her unborn child. At the time, they'd thought that they were stuck in _his_ time, forever, and he'd felt horrible for everything his wife had given up merely to be with him. Had they been rejected from the one place since his childhood exile that he'd ever dared to call home... Well, fortunately that had not been the case.

Nor had it turned out that Kagome was forever banned from visiting her own century. He would never forget how they'd come to realize that they could still pass back and forth through the well. How panicked he had been before he'd realized that he and Kagome were not permanently separated from one another. It'd been only the third time since his mother's death that he'd shed tears, and the second time that said tears had been shed for the girl named Kagome.

**~~~Flashback~~~**

As dawn's early light filtered in through the edges of the covered window in their sleeping chamber, Inuyasha continued to remain motionless in bed, despite his state of wakefulness. They were only two weeks into spring, after all, so the mornings were still fairly chilly, and he wanted his sleeping wife to be able to enjoy the comfort of his body heat for as long as her slumbering mind insisted she still needed to rest.

Not that he appreciated the cold all that much, himself.

While the hanyou would forever insist that he didn't feel temperature changes the same way humans did, that wasn't to say that he didn't greatly prefer the warmth of snuggling up against his wife's soft and caring body, burying his nose in the crook of her neck, inhaling her wonderful scent with every breath. Breakfast could wait. Besides, since they were long since out of ramen, that meant that just like every morning since moving into their hut, he'd have to go hunt something in the forest to prepare for that morning's meal, as they had nothing yet in the way of a vegetable garden. If he was going to have to go freeze his ass off in the crisp morning air looking for rabbits, then he at least wanted to accumulate as much 'cuddle time' as he could muster first to help make the trip worthwhile.

Though come to think of it, it was getting to be time to really look into planting a garden of sorts, since they were entering spring. Even though _he_ could survive on a diet of meat alone, Inuyasha knew that Kagome, as a human, needed much more variety in her meals. Well, okay, so she wasn't truly a pure human any longer, but that didn't matter. She was still _mostly_ human, and she was a breeding one at that, so he _definitely_ needed to make sure she got all those 'vai-te-mihns' she always used to talk about in regard to eating various foods. They couldn't mooch off of Kaede's generosity forever.

The elder miko had already agreed to take care of Shippou for a couple of months, so that they could enjoy what Kagome had called their 'belated honeymoon'. They _greatly_ appreciated her agreement to do so. The runt would be living under their roof soon enough, but in the mean time, Inuyasha was thoroughly enjoying their _intimate_ privacy.

Holding on to that last thought, Inuyasha snuggled himself even closer to Kagome's nude form under their layers of blankets. It was a minor miracle that his usual morning excitement wasn't poking her from behind, but he supposed that his desire to let her sleep-in that morning was so great that it simply overrode every other desire his body contained, including _that_ one. It had only been yesterday, after all, that he'd discovered the change in her scent that he'd come to associate with pregnant females.

It was a distinct change that he'd noticed in Sango's scent as well, when the ex-slayer had been with-child. He'd admittedly been surprised to notice the change in Kagome's scent so soon, and he'd honestly second-guessed himself for a moment at first, wondering if his nose was just playing tricks on him, considering he'd only lived with her _other_ new scent for a little over a month, but double checking had confirmed it for him. She was pregnant.

It was only six weeks ago that his wife had merged herself with the youkai essence of the Sacred Jewel, thus permanently altering her natural scent to include the delicate undertones of what had once been the scent of the jewel itself. It wasn't really a hard change to get used to, though, considering Kagome had often been perfumed by the jewel's odor anyway, with how infrequently the shards had ever left her person. Having to accept her new scent was a small price to pay for the wonderful gift of having her lifespan increased to match his own, not to mention how much more powerful his wife had become in every other aspect of her life. Inuyasha would forever be thankful to the youkai of the jewel for sacrificing their independence for her sake.

Once he'd realized that his nose wasn't playing tricks on him, and that the new change he'd detected in her scent was really there, he'd pulled her into a sudden and fierce embrace, quite without warning, and without any explanation to their friends who had witnessed the act, as he'd done so during their midday meal get-together at Kaede's. Having finally managed to choke out after a moment that he'd just suddenly realized that Kagome was pregnant, the atmosphere in the elder miko's hut had instantly turned to one of celebration, as everyone present readily congratulated the future parents, including the elder miko herself.

Kaede had had nothing but kind words to offer her young apprentice who had honestly been just as surprised as the rest of them at her husband's words. Kaede had stated with confidence that Kagome, as far as she knew, was the world's first pregnant miko, but she was also the world's first miko to have absorbed the essence of youkai without turning evil, so that the young girl had gone and broken yet another rule had hardly seemed surprising, Kaede had stated mirthfully. She'd even offered Inuyasha a gentle and sincere hand upon his forearm, as she'd told the hanyou of her faith in him to be a wonderful father.

They'd ended up staying up late into the night, Inuyasha and Kagome, discussing everything that had suddenly changed in their lives yet again. Kagome wasn't upset to have become pregnant so quickly, even if it was a little surprising. But she was looking forward to becoming a mother; it was something she'd always secretly wanted for her future, and she'd known ever since she'd first realized her feelings for the dog-eared hanyou that there was no one else in the world that she wanted to be the father of her children.

On the other side of the coin, having children was something that Inuyasha had never thought possible for somebody like him, at least not until the day he'd confessed his feelings for the girl he'd known had loved him for some time, agreeing to make her his wife and to make the most out of their rather uncertain lives together. Children had still been out of the question, at least in the beginning, but the subject had at least no longer been taboo. Kagome had told him long ago of her desire to one day be the mother of his children, and despite his usual silence on the subject, he'd known that _she'd_ known that he'd wanted a family with her more than anything.

Now, it appeared that his ultimate desire, surpassed only by his previously fulfilled desire to have her with him throughout his long life, was about to be granted. Kagome was with-child, _his_ child, and Inuyasha could say with finality that he'd most definitely never been happier than he was in that moment.

It was no wonder Kagome was so tired, sleeping in so late, considering how late he'd ended up keeping her up the night before. Even after their discussion had finally come to a close, he'd then been 'up' for another expression of their love, and she had responded to his advances wholeheartedly. They hadn't rutted, or mated, or _fucked_ , or any other words he occasionally applied to the act, depending on its intensity and duration, but rather, the hanyou would say with sincerity that he and Kagome had made love last night, just as they had made love their very first night together, when he'd first somehow braved confessing his feelings aloud to the girl.

The fluttering, nervous, enraptured feelings of love that had overtaken his heart their first night together were parallel to the feelings that had been running through him last night as he'd gazed into his wife's eyes and known that together, the two of them had created a new life.

Of course, all good things had to come to an end, so it was only a matter of time before the woman in his arms finally stirred, inviting the chill of morning as she pushed back the blankets to rise from their futon. Inuyasha frowned as he watched Kagome apply layer after layer of robes upon her previously naked body, asking in a playful tone, “Now what'd you go and do a thing like that for? I was enjoying the view.”

Smirking, the miko turned her gaze to her equally naked husband, who had made no attempt to hide his lack of attire from where the blankets had been pushed away from his person.

“I'm afraid it's much too cold to journey to the latrine in the buff,” she said in mock apology. “But if you don't mind me giving any visitors to the shrine such a show, I'll remember to keep the robes off once the heat of summer is upon us.”

Growling possessively, albeit in a rather playful manner, Inuyasha lunged from their bed before Kagome even had time to blink, wrapping his naked body around her clothed one in a tender, loving embrace.

“Maybe I should build a new latrine. One connected to the house, like you're used to.”

“With no manner of plumbing?” Kagome replied. “No thank you,” she teased, adding, “Even _I_ wouldn't be able to stand the smell. You'd probably pass out.”

The miko giggled as she felt the man wrapped around her growl in the back of his throat. The type of growl she'd almost call a purr were it not for the minor detail that he was canine.

“With me unconscious, you'd be free to have your way with me,” he murmured, kissing her neck, while grinding his rapidly hardening erection into her thigh. Apparently, once Kagome had been permitted to wake up on her own, his 'morning excitement' had decided to pay them a visit, after all.

“I already do that now anyway,” she answered, turning in his arms just enough to seek out his mouth with her own. The kiss was slow, deliberate, and bespoke of many things to come, just as soon as she returned from answering the call of nature.

Inuyasha chuckled as his wife finally began squirming in his grasp, more desperate to get away. Releasing her then, he kissed her nose, and promised to get the fire burning hot again in her absence. A nice warm hut was much better for partaking in certain activities, especially when those activities required the removal of clothing.

````

It was midday when the miko finally let her hanyou husband depart to hunt them something to eat. They'd had a small meal of rice to tide them over, but her growling stomach had quickly reminded Kagome that they hadn't yet had much in the way of _real_ food that morning. Besides, she was eating for two now, as the saying went, and although she knew that she wasn't really supposed to increase her normal diet all that much, she would concede that Inuyasha was probably also right in that a youkai baby needed more meat during its development than a human one would.

They weren't sure how youkai-like their child would actually be, considering Inuyasha was already a hanyou, but they might be dealing with an infant that would be more hanyou itself, rather than three-quarters human, if Kagome's own youkai attributes were also to be taken into consideration. Neither of them knew if her youkai properties counted, if they were truly in her blood at all or only in her body on a spiritual level, and if her hanyou aura could affect her unborn child in any way.

Youkai _were_ beings of magic, after all, and were much more sensitive to things like auras than a human would ever be. Did the auras of a demonic unborn infant's parents affect its development as strongly as their blood work? Only time would tell.

The day was turning out to be a rather peaceful one, until suddenly, Kagome was reminded of her all too recent thoughts on youkai and auras, when a demonic aura the likes of which she'd never felt before suddenly brushed up against her miko senses. Something, or rather some _one,_ was on their way to the village, approaching rapidly.

They were given just enough of a warning to get all of the villagers inside before a daiyoukai of Sesshoumaru's stature suddenly emerged from the heavens above, his monstrous form of a towering feline collapsing in upon itself in a cloud of jyaki to reveal the form of a rather handsome and well dressed man, his elven appearance made solid just as his boot-clad feet lighted upon the earth.

“Who the hell are you?” Inuyasha demanded with a protective hand around the miko at his side, while his other hand hovered over Tetsusaiga's hilt.

Kagome was not unarmed, as a full quiver of arrows rested snugly across her back, while she held the bow from Mt. Azusa in a white-knuckled grip. Something about the youkai currently standing before her had her more nervous than she could recall feeling against any of their other foes in a long, long time.

What the hell did this guy want, anyway? They had nothing that was of any value to anyone else, unless he was yet another straggler running late in his pursuit of the Sacred Jewel. It'd only been a month and a half since its destruction, after all, and every once in a while...

“I seek the jewel,” the daiyoukai answered, not bothering with introductions.

_Bingo…_ Kagome thought, mentally rolling her eyes but knowing better than to show any such disrespect on the outside.

He was by far the most powerful youkai who'd ever shown up looking for the thing, and Kagome would really rather avoid pissing him off it at all possible. Daiyoukai weren't supposed to _want_ the jewel, or at least, that was the impression she'd gathered from Sesshoumaru's continued disinterest. This guy was dangerous.

It was a good thing he hadn't managed to come across any of the shards, the miko thought then, even as she wondered if perhaps the shards themselves had still disinterested this particular daiyoukai, and as such he had been deliberately biding his time until after the jewel was completed, letting her do all the dirty work. Too bad for him that he took so long to react to the feel of the completed jewel, though Kagome was silently thanking every kami she could think of that he _hadn't_ actually shown up while they'd still had it.

While the barrier she'd placed around the jewel after first returning to the village with the completed bobble had successfully masked its presence from the scores of lower youkai the likes of which Inuyasha had battled alongside Kikyou over fifty years ago, Kagome had known that stronger beings would still be able to sense its presence, and thus home in on its supposed location, even after she purified it.

And a small handful of what they'd called 'middle-ground' youkai had indeed shown up looking for it from time to time ever since then, but fortunately, none of those youkai had ever posed a true threat to them or their village, most of them just youkai who were roughly humanoid in shape, or at least bipedal, and able to speak, as they'd all coherently demanded the jewel. They had all been disbanded easily enough.

Unfortunately, even after successfully purifying the jewel, the youkai just kept coming, apparently following some rumor or another, ignoring the fact that they could no longer sense the jewel's presence since they had already known they were attempting to mask its presence with a barrier.

Kagome still recalled how Yura of the Hair had said she'd heard of the jewel's reappearance through rumors among the oni clans, the woman not having known the jewel had been shattered until she'd seen for herself the single shard of it that had been in their possession at that time. It was easy to understand how something like them finally getting rid of the jewel once and for all would be something that hadn't made it through the rumor mill yet, either, since every time another youkai showed up looking for the stupid thing, none of them had ever lived to tell about it.

Which unfortunately meant that everyone still thought it existed.

_Hmm, we're going to have to see if we can spread the word, ourselves_ , Kagome thought then, but one problem at a time.

“Feh, you're too late, asshole. The jewel's long gone,” Inuyasha answered.

Kagome mentally cringed at her husband's show of bravado. Couldn't Inuyasha tell how much more powerful this guy was than any of the others?

Of course he could, she realized quickly, not that that meant he would ever back down from a fight.

What happened to not wanting to leave her as a single mother? From the way the daiyoukai's eyes narrowed at Inuyasha's words, it was clear he put about as much faith in the hanyou's statement as everybody else had. But at least he hadn't started attacking them outright, yet. They needed to get him away from the village.

“Do not think me a fool, hanyou,” the feline dayoukai spat in reply. “Your kuromiko has merely perfected her ability to mask its presence.”

At his words, Kagome took a moment to think of things from his point of view. It was looking even more likely that the reason they'd never seen him before was because he had in fact only been interested in the jewel once she'd completed it.

_Once I'd completed it 'for him'..._ she corrected sarcastically in her mind.

Once the jewel had finally been whole, it had pulsed with an intensity of power that a few broken shards had never come close to matching, so knowing when her job of reassembling it was over would have been a no-brainer for somebody as powerful as the youkai standing before them. Then, shortly after arriving in Kaede's village, Kagome had managed to perfect her masking barrier, at least to what her current level of miko abilities had been at that time. She'd known that her barrier would only mask the jewel's presence against the world's weaker youkai, but it'd truly been the weaker, mindless beasts that had been the greatest threat at the time, anyway, as they attacked in the largest numbers, and without rhyme or reason. They were animals, truly wild beasts, and her barrier over the jewel had successfully ensured their village's safety from such monsters.

Having already known what they'd wanted to do with the jewel once it was eventually completed, Kagome and Inuyasha hadn't wasted any time with quickly returning to her home, telling her family of their success and saying their farewells. To somebody like the daiyoukai standing before them, the miko quickly realized that the moment she'd slipped through the well, it must have felt as if the jewel had disappeared from their world – which it had – but so then when they'd returned again the following morning, he would have also felt the jewel's return, and concluded that her attempt to 'mask' the jewel completely against stronger youkai had failed after a period of time.

He had undoubtedly sensed it when she'd first applied the only true barrier she'd ever kept around the jewel, so he'd already known that she'd been attempting to conceal its presence, and therefore, he'd probably remained steadily on course, even as she'd temporarily returned to the future. He'd probably only felt more sure of himself when the jewel's muted aura had reappeared the following day.

Keeping that in mind, then it probably stood to reason that a couple of days later, when Kagome had made her wish on the jewel and acquired its power, the daiyoukai had merely assumed that she'd finally managed to perfect her masking cloak. He'd probably continued to head in their direction at a slow and steady pace, taking his time because he'd felt that there was no need to rush, especially since the miko had finally perfected her ability to mask the jewel, thus ensuring he had all the time in the world to retrieve it, because nobody else would be a threat to him in his pursuit of the bobble, and it would therefore be waiting safely in her possession for his arrival.

He'd probably only become agitated as he'd continued to decrease the distance between himself and their village, and had still continually failed to sense the jewel even in the slightest. Surely he would have started to doubt that any miko could've so thoroughly hidden its presence from someone as powerful as himself. Maybe he'd started to panic that in its invisibility, it had successfully been moved to another location entirely, which was why he'd suddenly transformed into his true form to quickly close the final gap between them without any further delay. He thought they'd hidden it; the possibility that the jewel had actually been destroyed had probably never even entered his mind.

Good luck explaining that to the daiyoukai now, though. Ah, well, it was worth a shot.

“Lord Neko,” Kagome began slowly since she didn't know his name, ignoring the nasty look her husband sent her way for addressing the bastard so honorably. “The jewel is truly no more. While I admit to having originally placed a small concealing barrier around it, which I'm sure someone of your power could have easily seen right through, I have since successfully removed the jewel from this world.”

Inuyasha would give credit where credit was due. At least Kagome wasn't showing any fear in front of the bastard, even though he could feel her shaking from where he still kept his hand around her waist for support. She also hadn't blabbed a single thing about actually taking the jewel's powers into herself. Good girl.

“Insolent wench!” the daiyoukai hissed.

_Uh-oh_...

“Kagome!” Inuyasha shouted, grabbing her with his other hand and yanking them both off to the side mere seconds before a blast of energy scorched the ground where they'd just been standing.

It was at that moment that two more fighters appeared on the scene, one dressed in the robes of a monk despite his status as a husband and father, the other wearing the form-fitting black leather uniform of a youkai slayer, even if the outfit felt a little tighter in certain areas than it used to.

“Where's Shourio?” Kagome shouted, pleased to see her demon-slaying friend come out of retirement, but concerned for the woman's two-month-old baby.

“With Kaede!” Sango answered while flinging Hiraikotsu.

The daiyoukai easily deflected her weapon, while simultaneously slashing out with multiple blades of youki, blasts of energy that were similar in nature to Inuyasha's soul shattering iron claw, only much...much stronger.

“Look out!” Miroku shouted, barely throwing up a barrier in time to protect himself from the energy blasts, while Kagome, who was much closer to Sango in that moment, threw up a larger barrier to protect both herself and her friend.

Inuyasha easily dodged the blades, and then quickly got himself into position for an attack of his own. They needed to move the battle away from the village, damn it!

A fierce roar from the sky drew everyone's attention, then, as Kirara suddenly flew overhead, growling something offensive to the daiyoukai that only a fellow feline would understand. As the humanoid neko was temporarily distracted fending off the flames of the dive-bombing nekomata while Kirara successfully herded the man away from the village and towards Inuyasha's Forest, said hanyou took that moment to draw Tetsusaiga and immediately retaliate with a powerful Wind Scar attack, shouting “Kirara, up!” to ensure their loyal companion avoided the blast.

“You will hand over the jewel!” the daiyoukai shouted then, as he drew his own sword, subsequently absorbing the power of the Wind Scar and flinging it back at Inuyasha in his own version of the Backlash Wave.

“Inuyasha!” Kagome cried, unable to reach him in time, but after the dust settled, it was quickly revealed that Tetsusaiga's sheath had protected him as he dropped the cracked scabbard into the dirt.

“We don't fucking _have_ the jewel, you bastard!” he yelled, tightening his grip on Tetsusaiga's hilt as the blade began to crystallize. “Diamond Spears!”

Inuyasha was correct in his assumption that the daiyoukai's sword could only absorb energy-based attacks, as the neko quickly maneuvered to dodge the giant spears of adamant he sent hurling in his direction. Kagome didn't hesitate to quickly launch an attack of her own in that moment, as she sent arrow after arrow soaring straight for the guy. Two of them hit and damaged his armor, while a third missed completely, but her forth arrow made _loud_ contact with the bastard's leg, as he cried out while crumpling to the ground from his temporary loss of use of the limb.

Her miko powers were strong, but the daiyoukai was _also_ strong, and it would take a force of purification beyond Kagome's ability to reduce him to sparkly dust. Just because she had finally gained full control over her miko powers didn't mean that she was suddenly the most powerful miko to have ever lived. She was a decent miko, but the man they were currently up against was a _very_ powerful daiyoukai. Her original arrows, that were already strong enough to destroy weak youkai, Sesshoumaru had been able to catch mid-air without even burning his palm.

Truly, crippling the guy as she'd just done had been one hell of a lucky shot.

It'd also very nearly been her last.

“Damn you!” he yelled, as he flailed his arm in her general direction, a wide arc of youkai energy shooting from his fingertips to create a rapidly approaching wave of destruction.

Kagome could do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut, hoping her barrier would deflect the blast she had no time to avoid. It was a _very_ good thing they'd gotten the fight away from the village, and even their own home wasn't in the path of the wave. Not that the area was free of all structures...

Before Kagome even knew what hit her, she was in the air, wrapped securely in Inuyasha's protective arms. He'd gotten a mild jolt from initially coming into contact with her barrier, but even before she'd realized what was going on, her subconscious instinct from her youkai side had instantly recognized her husband's aura and had immediately dropped her shield, something she wouldn't have been able to do so quickly had she not possessed a youkai side.

As he came back down for a landing, depositing her several meters away in the direct vicinity of Miroku, he gave her a quick chaste kiss before shouting “Keep her safe!” to the monk and quickly heading back to finish off the daiyoukai while he was still down.

Kagome hadn't missed the loud explosion that had sounded from somewhere behind where she'd previously been standing, and turning to look in the well's direction in that moment, she gasped at the amount of destruction the daiyoukai's energy blast had caused.

The Bone Eater's Well had been completely obliterated. Not that the outer wall to the time portal couldn't be reconstructed, as this was in truth not the first time she'd seen the well of the Feudal era come to ruin, but the sheer number of toothpicks its wood had been reduced to made the miko ever so grateful that her husband had whisked her to safety, even braving her deflective barrier to do so.

_This is bad, that guy's_ _really_ _powerful_.

By the time Inuyasha made it back to the fallen daiyoukai, releasing another blast of diamond spears in his direction, the guy had already regained mobility of his leg and was able to dodge most of the spears, successfully slicing through a few of the others with a youki-based blade that appeared to emerge from his fingertips at will, like a dagger of super-charged energy similar in concept to Sesshoumaru's poison whip.

_Damn cat, he can probably extend and retract the thing like his claws..._

With Miroku's staff strapped to Hiraikotsu, the giant boomerang made a second trip in the daiyoukai's direction, then, and was deflected much less gracefully as its spiritual barrier burned the neko's hand as he batted the weapon away. At the same time as Sango flung her weapon in the daiyoukai's direction, Miroku also threw several of his most powerful ofuda towards the beast, most of which made contact as the daiyoukai focused his attention on deflecting Sango's attack.

Still, it appeared as though all they were doing was pissing him off. The monk had never thought that there would ever come a time when he'd actually miss the Wind Tunnel, but if he could have picked a single moment in which he wanted to have the curse back, only temporarily, it would've been right then.

_That's it! I'm not a little girl any more…_ Kagome thought. “Kirara!” she shouted, quickly mounting the fire-neko and taking to the skies, bow at the ready.

“Inuyasha, let him have it!” she shouted, and though she could detect her husband's nervousness for her safety, there was no way she could miss the look of pride he also shot her way, as he tightened his fingers around Tetsusaiga's hilt.

“Come on, Tetsusaiga! Let's show him what we can do!”

_I'm not some puny hanyou,_ Inuyasha thought with conviction. _Daiyoukai blood also flows through my own veins_.

Everyone felt it as his blood pulsed seemingly in time with their own heartbeats, as Tetsusaiga glowed and drew forth Inuyasha's youkai blood, his mind remaining as focused as ever. The daiyoukai's eyes widened ever so slightly as the hanyou's scent changed, but that was the least of his worries when he also detected the rapidly altering scent of the kuromiko currently flying above him.

_What is this...? How did I fail to notice the sheer magnitude of youki in her aura? It literally screams of the Shikon jewel!_

Eyes bleeding red, and her hair flying about her in a wind not created by Kirara's flight, Kagome drew on her own youkai strength, as she prepared to launch a rapid succession of arrows into her husband's Wind Scar.

Let's see the daiyoukai absorb _that_.

“Take this you bastard!” Inuyasha bellowed as he swung his sword, “Wind Scar!”

The daiyoukai prepared himself, posed with his sword to absorb the hanyou's attack, but his eyes quickly widened in surprise to note how much more powerful the attack was this time around. At that same moment, he also felt the rapid approach of burning missals of purity, as the miko above him seemed to turn more youkai than human, bleeding every ounce of her reiki out of her very being and into her arrows.

“Curse you!” he shouted as the duel blasts consumed him, not that a daiyoukai of his stature would go down without a fight.

Sending out a blast of his own aura in retaliation, the severely wounded neko quickly adopted his truest form, rising into the sky as a monstrous feline, easily dwarfing Kirara whom he quickly batted from the sky before the nekomata had time to avoid it.

“Kagome!!!!” Inuyasha shouted in horror, losing his transformation as he bore witness to both his wife and her neko steed falling lifelessly to the ground, Kirara having reverted into her kitten form upon being knocked unconscious by the daiyoukai's sudden blow.

As if that wasn't bad enough, a severe wind picked up in the immediate area, caused by the very aura of the daiyoukai hovering before them. The force prevented Inuyasha from leaping after Kagome's falling form, as he was pushed backwards midair when he attempted to do so, and when Kagome's unconscious form made contact with the earth, everyone cringing at the sound of impact coupled by her rag-doll appearance, she immediately began rolling from the force of wind they all had to fight against merely to remain on their feet.

Before Inuyasha had a chance to reach her, her body fell into the hole that was currently all that remained of the Bone Eater's Well, and his breathing literally stopped as the feel of her aura immediately disappeared.

_No...No!_

He could hardly go after her, not with the giant daiyoukai still posing quite a real threat to his other friends, and in fact their entire village. But what made it so heartbreaking was that he didn't even know if he _could_ go after her, or even, if she was…

No, she couldn't be dead. He'd still felt life from her aura until the moment she'd disappeared into the well, which obviously just meant the well had successfully transported her into the future. But...even though he was pretty sure that she _was_ still alive, she was undoubtedly injured and in need of medical attention, and her family never expected to see her again, so they would never check the well-house for her return. So if he didn't find a way to go to her, then Kagome might die at the bottom of the well in her time!

_Oh gods...oh gods..._

“Inuyasha!” Miroku shouted then, snapping the hanyou out of his spiraling thoughts. “Focus man! We must finish this, now, for Kagome's sake!”

“Right!” Inuyasha agreed, nodding with conviction, while praying to every god he could think of that the well _would_ let him through, and that Kagome would still be alive on the other side when he arrived.

_Hang in there, Kagome...mate...I'll come for you_.

Blinking back the tears that threatened to impair his vision, Inuyasha ignored the dampness of his cheeks while he concentrated on Tetsusaiga once more, as the blade began to change a final time. Instead of crystallizing, this time, the blade developed an outer layer of scales.

“Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga...” Sango breathed in understanding.

Hopefully, the lumbering daiyoukai would have no idea what that particular attack was supposed to do, and wouldn't realize how much easier of a target he was while in his massive true form. She knew how desperately they needed to end this battle, and now.

Managing to fight the wind to get to where Kirara rested, the slayer scooped up her fallen neko companion, whom she could tell was injured but would recover, and quickly as possible made her way over to Miroku's side, her prayers with their hanyou companion and his wife.

“This ends now, bastard! Die!” Inuyasha shouted as he swung his sword, and the smug look on the daiyoukai's feline visage quickly morphed into one of panicked realization as he realized the hanyou hadn't swung in his direction and he felt the blade slice through his youketsu instead, the very source of his demonic aura.

Youkai were magical beings, after all, so they could therefore be killed by destroying the anchor of magic that bound them to the physical world. No harm need befall their physical bodies directly, which were in truth just manifestations of their magical energy, anyway.

The same wouldn't be true for Inuyasha, who had a genuine physical body and would probably just permanently become human if his youketsu were destroyed, but for a youkai, destroying the youketsu was sort of the equivalent to if you could remove all of the electrical activity in a human's brain. If you destroyed the energy that was the life force, then the being would die.

The daiyoukai's roar echoed loudly throughout the region, as everyone observed his body slowly disappear into nothingness. Once he was dead, Inuyasha took two seconds to retrieve Tetsusaiga's scabbard and make eye contact with his friends. Miroku and Sango both nodded solemnly, silently telling him that they understood and supported what he had to do. Wordlessly, Inuyasha nodded back then sprinted for the hole in the earth where the well had once stood, and leapt in without hesitation.


	3. Blessings and Curses

A/N: We are still in flashback mode from the previous chapter.

Chapter 3 – Blessings and Curses

Slowly blinking her eyes open, Kagome moaned, wishing the room would stop spinning long enough for her to get her bearings on exactly where she was. Gradually, as her vision came into focus, the miko realized that she recognized her surroundings with a sense of foreboding...she was in her old bedroom.

_Wha...how did I get here?!_

Then, as her most recent memories suddenly returned to her, she immediately bolted upright, an action her body instantly protested, causing her to lie right back down again. But virtually ignoring the shooting pain rattling her exhausted body, Kagome's panicking thoughts were centered around one thing, and one thing only.

_Inuyasha! Oh gods...oh gods...I've got to get back!_

In her desperation, she tried to call his name aloud, but all that escaped her lips was a cracked groan of pain, followed shortly by a spell of wracking coughs. The noise was enough to wake the other occupant of the room, whom she'd been too distraught to notice until then.

“Oh, Kagome! Thank the gods!” the girl's mother declared with relief, as she practically leapt out of the chair she'd been napping in and rushed to her daughter's bedside. “Don't try to move around too much, dear, you were broken up pretty badly,” Mrs. Higurashi told her quietly as she brushed a stray hair from her precious daughter's face. “Would you like some water?”

“Inu...yasha...” Kagome replied brokenly, not caring about herself until she knew the fate of her husband.

Had they been able to defeat the daiyoukai? And how had she come to be in her room? The last thing she remembered was seeing a giant feline paw headed right for her, much too fast to be avoided, and the horrible pain of impact as her whole world went black. Had she died? Was she dreaming?

“He's fine,” her mother assured her, and though it took Kagome a moment to realize what she was saying, an immense wave of relief washed over her at her mother's words. “He's in the Goshinboku, I imagine. He just couldn't stand to see me crying over you, convinced your injuries were his fault, the foolish boy.”

With that, Mrs. Higurashi wiped a stray tear from her cheek, offering her daughter the brightest of smiles all the while, as she quickly stood and made her way over to the window. Sliding it open, she barely called the hanyou's name and then before she could even blink Inuyasha was perched precariously on the window ledge.

“How is she?” he asked, stepping inside the room.

“Inuyasha!” Kagome managed to cry out unbrokenly despite the dryness of her throat.

“Kagome!” he shouted in return, immediately collapsing to his knees beside her bed, as he raised his hand to shakily run his fingers through her sweat-dampened bangs. “Oh, you're all right. Thank the kami, you're all right.”

“Wha...what happened?”

Inuyasha was quick to explain how, after she'd fallen from the sky, she'd ended up dropping into what was left of the well. He told his wife how he had finally finished the daiyoukai off, and how when he'd leapt into the time portal after her, heart in his throat, the time portal had blessedly let him through and he'd found her crumpled body, unconscious but breathing, resting at an awkward angle at the bottom of the well in her time.

“So we can still pass through the well?” Kagome asked him then, able to speak more coherently after accepting the cool sip of water her mother offered, as the elder Higurashi woman listened to the story of her daughter's near death for the second time.

“Well, I was able to follow you here, but that's all I know,” Inuyasha confessed, having not dared to leave her time for the five days she'd been unconscious.

“Five days?! How badly was I hurt?!”

The hanyou went on to explain, reluctantly, how she'd had several broken bones, including ribs, one of her legs, both arms, and a dislocated shoulder. Inuyasha hated to think of the injuries his wife had sustained, but she deserved to know the truth. She'd already been turning all different shades of black and blue by the time he'd reached her in the future, and at first, when he'd crashed into her family's home cradling her broken body, he'd demanded that she be taken to one of their advanced healers.

Her mother had readily agreed, of course, and had been preparing to drive Kagome to the hospital until Souta had been the one to point out how his sister's bruises were changing color. And in fact they had been, practically right before their eyes. More spots of dark purple were slowly appearing, while the oldest bruises already looked to be turning slightly greenish.

Only the shallower bruises were healing so rapidly, as several of the largest ones appeared unchanged, but it was enough of a sign to indicate that Kagome's youkai-enhanced healing would be noticeable to medical professionals. Upon her family's confusion, Inuyasha had very briefly explained how when Kagome had absorbed the power of the jewel within herself – something they had already known she'd been planning on doing in order to increase her life span to match his own – she had acquired other youkai-like abilities as well, such as more rapid healing.

Relieved but also troubled by that revelation, it was Mrs. Higurashi who had suddenly, albeit reluctantly, insisted that Kagome simply be brought to her room, instead. As desperately as she needed to be in a hospital, they couldn't risk taking her to one, for her own safety. Inuyasha had found no small level of irony in that concept, in that she had to avoid the healers of her time for her own good. Her youkai healing was both a blessing and a curse at the same time, in that aspect, and for the first time in his life, Inuyasha had truly understood how panicked Kagome must have always felt whenever she'd treated his own injuries, despite his casual aloofness regarding how quickly he'd recover.

Seeing the evidence of his wife's own more rapid recovery had brought the hanyou a mild sense of reassurance, but she'd hardly been out of the woods just yet. Setting her bones had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do in his entire life. At least she had been unconscious for it.

Kagome was not upset to learn of the severity of her injuries, and just like her mother, she immediately assured Inuyasha that he was not to blame. The daiyoukai responsible for attacking her had merely been seeking the jewel, after all, so Inuyasha had had nothing directly to do with that man's appearance in their village whatsoever. Still, the miko refused to place one hundred percent of the blame on the jewel itself, either. The one at fault, truly, was the daiyoukai who had attacked them, plain and simple.

Yes, the jewel's presence and temptation had been what'd drawn the neko-youkai to their village in the first place, but its youki properties had also been what'd ultimately saved her life, so she couldn't rightfully bring herself to hate the jewel for that reason. Had she not acquired the power of the youkai from the jewel, somehow merely receiving slowed aging, as had been her original intention, then there would have been no way she could have survived being struck down midair by the daiyoukai's paw, let alone falling so many feet to the ground. Had the jewel done what _she'd_ originally wished for it to do, she would now be dead, so she _definitely_ felt grateful to the youkai of the jewel for the way in which they'd altered her request.

Of course, Kagome also thanked her husband for having saved her life, as well, because surely she would have died at the bottom of the well had he not finished the daiyoukai off in such a timely manner, immediately following after her into the future. But even if she hadn't truly been in danger of dying, she'd definitely needed his aid more than she'd ever needed it before, and he'd been there for her, without fail. Her family never would have discovered her presence in the well, after all, having no idea that she'd even returned to them until after Inuyasha had crashed into the kitchen while cradling her form to his chest.

Despite the fact that she'd appeared to have survived her ordeal to the point where she would recover without much medical interference, she'd definitely still needed more than the simple care of a bedside nurse. Her bones had needed to be set, for one thing. They were already in the process of knitting, now, thanks to her youkai healing, but had it not been for Inuyasha putting them back in the proper place, they would've started healing _wrong_. She'd also had several lacerations that had needed to be cleaned, to make sure that infection didn't set in while her body concentrated on healing her more serious injuries first.

Now, after being unconscious for five days – something Inuyasha suspected might, in part, have to do with the fact that she'd virtually drained herself of all of her miko energy in her last attack on the daiyoukai – all of Kagome's superficial wounds were completely healed. Only the faintest of bruises still remained on her shoulder and hip, where her body had originally made contact with the ground.

Her broken bones were obviously nowhere near fully healed, yet, but they were recovered to the point that she could move her arms and leg properly, even if to do so still caused her pain. Kagome tried once again to sit up in that moment, despite her body's protests, but was immediately ordered to lie back down by both her husband as well as her mother. Neither of them wanted Kagome going anywhere until she was _fully_ recovered. Inuyasha could easily sense how weak she still was, her miko powers still in the process of restoring themselves, while her youkai powers worked 'round the clock to heal her broken body.

She would probably be back on her feet in another couple of days, but for that moment in time, the hanyou wanted his wife to stay exactly where she was. He'd come so close to losing her.

Both of them, actually.

As Inuyasha placed a tender hand upon Kagome's stomach, the miko's eyes opened wide in shocked realization. He'd only just told her yesterday, after all, so in that moment it'd simply slipped her mind. But how could she let such an important thing be forgotten, even if only for a moment?

“Oh gods...Inuyasha...” she breathed, terrified to voice her new fears aloud. “The baby...is it...?”

“Baby?!” Mrs. Higurashi blurted in surprise, jumping to attention and approaching her daughter's bedside once again, flashing a look between her daughter and son-in-law that was somewhere between elation and panic. “You're pregnant?” Her tone of voice was one of concern, but only because of her daughter's injuries. Kagome was a married woman, after all.

“Yes,” Inuyasha answered, reassuring both women. “Yes, she's pregnant. She’s _still_ pregnant.”

Leaning forward and kissing her forehead, a mild tinting of pink appearing on his cheeks to display such affection in front of her mother, Inuyasha assured his wife, “The baby's just fine, mate. It's strong, _you're_ strong. We're youkai, don't forget.”

The faintest hint of teasing entered his voice at his last words, as he offered Kagome a playful wink. After all, he was the one who had still consistently fretted over her being a 'weak human' despite the fact that _she_ continually kept on trying to assure him that she was much stronger now, being part youkai. It was good to finally hear him admit it, even if only the once.

Not only did Inuyasha concede to the fact that Kagome was in truth part youkai, but in that moment, he actually cherished the fact, because he too had realized that she would most certainly have died had it not been for the youkai of the jewel merging themselves with her being. He was grateful to _any_ force that prevented Kagome from being taken away from him. He was grateful to the Bone Eater's Well, for letting him travel into the future after her. Because they had both been able to pass through into Kagome's time, Inuyasha was fairly sure that that meant the well was still open to them for back and forth travel, but he had no intention of leaving Kagome's world until she was fully healed and lying cradled in his arms, just in case.

They'd just presumed that the well might close after the purification of the Sacred Jewel, but come to think of it, Inuyasha had never needed a jewel shard to pass back and forth in the past, and even though Kagome hadn't been able to get through at first that _one_ time, that might have just been because of the tree he'd shoved down into the well in an attempt at closing it. She hadn't needed a shard to pass back and forth during the period of time when the only shard remaining had been in Kohaku's neck and Naraku had possessed the rest of the jewel, but had she ever come back by herself at that time or only with Inuyasha?

Maybe something about his own being was simply powerful enough to activate the magic of the well on its own? The powers of the well were definitely _its_ own, and not truly related to the Sacred Jewel in any way. After all, the well was made from the wood of the Goshinboku, a tree of ages. It'd merely been the jewel that had enabled Kagome to use the sacred time portal when, ordinarily, she herself wouldn't have been powerful enough to do so. But now that she'd absorbed half of the jewel's power within herself, maybe she could use the well by herself too, now.

Not that Inuyasha planned on testing _that_ theory any time in the near future, or ever. Even if they discovered that they could in fact return to the past, he was adamant that any trips they ever made through the well into the future again would be made together, or not at all. No exceptions.

Gazing into Kagome's eyes in that moment, Inuyasha hoped that, for her sake, they could actually still pass back and forth between their two worlds at will. While it would be hard to adjust to life in her time, should it turn out that he was actually trapped there now, he knew he could adjust. Anywhere was home so long as Kagome was with him. But he also knew that she'd miss their friends in the past terribly, and Shippou was like a son to her. It would break her heart to be separated from the past probably just as strongly as she'd originally hated leaving her family in the future.

She'd found some small measure of comfort in the fact that, if everything went according to plan with the jewel – and nothing killed her throughout the centuries to come – she would have eventually gotten to see her family again after passing through time the conventional way, but such a reassurance didn't work in reverse. If they couldn't return to the past, that was it. Their friends were all dead and buried as far as they would be concerned, and the runt, the only one who could possibly still be alive in her time, could literally be anywhere in the world, if he had survived...and that was an 'if' they'd have no way of ever knowing the answer to if they never found him.

No, it would be very bad if they were trapped in the future forever, but no matter what, Inuyasha would be by her side, despite how badly he hated her tears.

Just thinking about it made his own eyes want to water up once again, but he had done enough crying five days ago to last him the next fifty years, as far as he was concerned. So shaking his thoughts free in that moment, Inuyasha tenderly asked his wife if she'd like anything to eat. She'd gone without food for five days, after all, barely just swallowing the few mouthfuls of water they'd been able to coax down her throat from time to time.

Actually, come to think of it, he'd gone without food for the last five days, too. He'd simply been unable to even think about eating with the uncertainty of his wife's condition hanging over him.

The look in Kagome's chocolate orbs spoke volumes in that moment, as if she'd been able to read her husband's every thought and worry as he'd gazed into her eyes with his own pools of golden honey. She remained silent on the subject that she knew dared not be broached, though, instead merely nodding her thanks to his inquiry and saying that, surprisingly enough, a simple cup of ramen felt like it'd hit the spot. Neither of them had had any in over a month, after all.

Inuyasha grinned at her request, and after kissing her forehead once more, he surprised both women by being the one to leave to fix the meal, giving Kagome's mother some time alone with her daughter.

**~~~End Flashback~~~**

Catching her husband's continual gaze, Kagome couldn't help but to smirk after a moment, turning her head and asking, “What?” in a playful manner. Was she wobbling like a penguin as she walked or something? She didn't think it was _that_ noticeable.

“Nothing,” Inuyasha assured his wife, adding, “I was just thinking about stuff.”

The tone of his voice, coupled by the bizarre look of relieved amazement in his eyes, had Kagome instantly realizing that her husband's mind wasn't currently on the comical appearance of her gait at all. Taking his hand, an act of public intimacy much more accepted in her time than it was back in his, Kagome gave her husband's hand a tender squeeze of reassurance, as she silently promised him once again that she was real...that 'they' were real.

He wasn't stupid, and had no delusions that the last two years could have possibly been a dream of some sort, but they were just so much _like_ a fantasy, so much like a dream he'd never thought would ever come true...not for somebody like him. The idea that she loved him, that she was about to have his baby...

Kagome always told him that for as crappy as his life had been before, that he deserved the happiness he had now, but silently, the hanyou would disagree. He didn't deserve Kagome. She was a goddess compared to somebody like him, and he would be indebted to the kami for the rest of his life and the next thousand lives beyond for the blessing that her presence in his life truly was.

Strolling down the sidewalk at a slow, steady pace, Kagome and Inuyasha were a vision of otherworldly loveliness to everyone they passed. Even to those who had no spiritual powers, who could not truly sense the strength of Kagome's aura, were able to tell that there was just something special about the girl, something that went well beyond her handmade costume of a thirteenth-century princess. Inuyasha's ears twitched like crazy as they walked, desperate to home in and identify all of the various sounds around him before deciding whether or not to dismiss them as unimportant, but his attention was never far from the woman at his side.

As a certain rhythmic pounding made up of some instruments he was sure he'd never heard before began tickling his sensitive eardrums, the hanyou glanced sideways to observe his wife's reaction, and upon seeing Kagome's increasing smile as her own advanced ears picked up the sounds not long after his did, Inuyasha knew that whatever it was, it was probably a good thing.

“That one of those 'dance club' things you told me about?” he asked her then, to which Kagome's smile only grew larger, as she picked up her pace and said “Come on!” practically dragging him with her for a second before he sped up his own stride to match hers.

Chuckling to himself, Inuyasha merely shook his head in amusement at her eagerness. Despite her obvious maturity, there were some times when she still acted like the very poster child of innocence.

After walking down a few more city blocks, a distance that didn't faze Kagome in the least compared to what she had been used to traveling in the Feudal era, they came upon a busy intersection that featured an all-ages dance club at the corner. All-ages meant no need to show ID at the door, which was good because Inuyasha didn't have any, and although Kagome had hers in the sagemono tied to her obi, it wouldn't do her much good at a twenty-and-up club anyway, considering she was only nineteen, one year under the legal drinking age.

Not that she wanted anything alcoholic to drink, anyway. Hanyou baby or no hanyou baby, she had no intention of drinking while pregnant.

As they entered the building the music suddenly got ten times louder, and Inuyasha quickly realized that despite as loud as it'd seemed from the outside, the building had apparently been designed to not let much of the sound escape out onto the street.

_Damn,_ but was the music loud on the inside.

His ears immediately pinned themselves to his head as a result, at least for a few minutes until he gradually got used to the vibrating sensation of such loud music practically rattling his brain, but fortunately, it was quickly apparent that nobody was staring at his 'costume' with enough attention to detail to noticed how 'real' it actually looked.

Except Kagome, of course.

“I'm sorry!” she practically had to shout over the music to make sure he heard her. “Does it hurt your ears?”

“Not really,” he answered back, also raising his voice loud enough to make sure she caught his words. “Not now that I'm used to it.”

The fact of the matter was that while the music _was_ loud, it was still music, not just some random explosive crashing noise that would cause his face to cringe and teeth to grind. After allowing his ears a moment to adjust to the incredible level of volume, Inuyasha found that he actually didn't mind the rhythmic melody that seemed to literally envelope them from all sides. It was a little disconcerting that such sensory overload left him unable to properly distinguish between any _other_ noises around him, though, and the same actually went for smell, too, as there were so many scents jammed into that place that he could barely tell what was what and who was who, but at least he still had his youkai strength.

Should something happen, he could easily grab Kagome and crash out the nearest wall to escape. That 'peace tie' ribbon thing they'd wrapped around Tetsusaiga's hilt and scabbard to prevent it from being drawn would fall to shreds at a single swipe of his claws if need be, not that he would necessarily even need his sword when most times, his claws were enough to have his enemies fall to shreds themselves.

Trying to relax, then, and let the music wrap itself around him, the hanyou wrapped an arm around the woman at his side in turn, as he joked, “Kid's probably wondering what the hell is going on, though. Ya know his hearing is probably just as sharp as mine is.”

“His hearing is _going_ to be as sharp as yours, but right now his ears are still closed,” Kagome replied, to which her husband just snorted and commented, “So were mine when we first entered this place, but I could still hear the music just fine.”

Smirking, Kagome grabbed her husband's hand and moved to lead him to a back corner of the room, away from the dance floor and most of the speakers. While Kagome would ordinarily love to shake her body to the blaring techno mix, her current ensemble was hardly the proper attire for club dancing, not to mention the fact that she was seven months pregnant. She just wanted to get out there, to show Inuyasha bits and pieces of her world, to take him to a place where he would be welcomed out in public in his natural appearance, as everyone present in the club was dressed to the gills in their Halloween finest.

Usually, the ears he hated and thought of as a curse would brand him as a freak even more so in Kagome's time than in his own, but tonight, thanks to the current holiday everyone was celebrating, his ears were instead actually receiving compliments. While the hanyou did not truly favor large crowds, he felt much more comfortable since he _was_ still in his hanyou form – he loathed the curse of the new moon more than anything – and his own desire to share in what Kagome's world thought of as normal was simply enough to override any insecurities he might still have about being out in public. Tokyo was a very crowded place, so there was really no way around it unless they simply never left the shrine grounds. What fun would that be?

Standing in the quietest and least crowded spot in the building, it was Inuyasha's turn to smirk as he gently patted his wife's belly, bending down to address her swollen stomach as he asked it, “There, is that better for ya, little guy?”

Kagome could only laugh.

While they didn't really know the sex of the baby, they'd just started referring to it as a 'he' because 'it' seemed so rude. Especially if you misconstrued the connotation of the term to imply that it had something to do with the child's hanyou status.

Inuyasha had had to bite back a growl when one of the villagers had smiled at her swollen stomach and asked her when 'it' would be born. Kagome had intervened before her husband could say anything and had told the villager that 'he or she' was due to be born near the beginning of winter. Inuyasha had quickly apologized to his wife for his temper, but it was sometimes still just surprising to the hanyou how Kaede's villagers did not despise him.

They had actually almost learned the sex of the baby, once. Inuyasha certainly wouldn't have been opposed to being privy to such information early, and he'd been flabbergasted when Kagome had first told him that such technology even existed.

After she'd recovered from her ordeal with the neko daiyoukai, they'd braved attempting to return to the past, and then the future, and then the past again, to discover with relief that the well still worked just fine as a two-way portal. Her family had actually feasted in the Goshinboku's honor that night, to thank it for such a blessing, the return of their daughter when they'd thought her lost to their time forever.

Kagome had never to that day risked venturing through the well by herself, but since Inuyasha was not opposed to letting his wife visit with her family whenever she wanted, it was an easy compromise to make. Her family loved Inuyasha, anyway, so even if he ever did fail to accompany her on one of her visits, then they'd just be on her case as to where he was and why he hadn't come with her.

Even though Kagome's mother had conceded that her daughter had needed to be kept away from the hospital when she'd been injured, as her unnaturally rapid healing would have certainly triggered a red flag of some sort, Mrs. Higurashi _had_ insisted that she start having regular check-ups at the family doctor because of her pregnancy. At first Kagome had agreed wholeheartedly, wanting to make sure that both she and her baby were as healthy as could be, and figuring that so long as all of the tests came back 'normal' they had nothing to worry about. It was the day she got her last ultrasound that she stopped going to the clinic, and the girl felt guilty for the phone calls her family had received since then, but what was she supposed to do?

Kagome had been excited to learn the sex of the baby. She'd wanted to be able to start picking out names, and clothes, and all the other stuff expectant mothers did when they knew if they were having a boy or a girl. But before the doctor had been able to discern the sex of the fetus, he'd discovered a startling 'abnormality' that had immediately captured his full attention.

For a split second, Kagome had actually been worried, herself. What was wrong with her baby? A wave of relief had washed over her when the doctor had started spouting off something about misshapen ears that appeared to be developing way too high upon the baby's head, and how it was such a horrible birth defect and blah blah blah, as he'd immediately started rattling off the various options available to her for emergency reconstructive surgery to be performed on her child immediately upon its birth. Kagome had been zoning out, meanwhile, temporarily in la-la-land over the realization that their child was in fact going to have its father's ears, truthfully not paying much attention to whatever else the doctor had said after that.

In the meantime, the doctor had been desperately trying to remain calm, although it'd been clear that he'd never seen such a deformity before, and it truly worried him. It was such a good thing they had discovered this now, he'd said, so that it wouldn't later take them by surprise, and they could now be ready to perform the surgery immediately, since the longer they waited, the more risk to her child, like an infant being born with a short tail, which happened once every four or five blue moons, and was always rectified immediately after birth.

Kagome had kind of snapped back into reality at her doctor's latest words, as she'd asked, “He has a tail, too?” Hmmm...she'd never even considered such a thing, but hey, however the kami made him.

“No, no, no...” her doctor had proceeded to reassure her, as he'd resumed talking about his emergency surgical plans once more, and it'd been then that Kagome had finally realized just how disturbed her doctor truly was by this.

In a way he'd been right, though, it _had_ been a good thing they'd discovered it now. Imagine his reaction upon her child's birth if he hadn't known about its ears in advance?

Phew. Disaster averted.

Smiling, Kagome had told him not to worry about it, that she was fine with the way her baby was going to be born, and that she most certainly did _not_ require emergency reconstructive surgery. It was a family trait, she'd told him, and nothing to be alarmed about. As he'd persisted in his claims, basically calling her a liar about the 'family trait part and unintentionally insulting her baby with his continued insistence of how unheard of this 'deformation' was, her youkai side had begun to grow more possessive.

“My child is _fine,_ ” she'd stated with finality, the equipment she'd been tied to to monitor her heart rate and things suddenly beeping out of control as her body's levels started rising beyond what was healthy for a normal human.

They were threatening her child! They wanted to take it from her upon its birth and dice it up with their knives! She wouldn't let them!

The doctor had of course then proceeded to freak out about Kagome's pulse rate increasing to beyond what normal humans were capable of without falling into cardiac arrest, not to mention the pulse rate of her unborn child that had also started rising to ordinarily deadly levels, the baby instinctively reacting to its mother's rising panic. He had to get Kagome under control before she hurt herself or the baby!

Then all hell had broken lose.

It was when he'd tried to inject her with something, presumably to calm her down, that the miko had pulled herself free from all of the medical equipment attached to her and had proceeded to run out of the clinic. If anyone had been able to see her panicked face as she'd run down the hall clutching her swollen stomach for support, they would've seen her eyes flashing back and forth between chocolate brown and demonic red. She'd never lost control like that before, but they were threatening her child! The youkai who had merged themselves with her being all those months ago were as protective of her unborn child as she was. They were a _part_ of her now; she and the youkai were one, and together, _they_ were the mother of her unborn child, so it was no wonder why her youki had flared at the doctor's words.

The doctor, meanwhile, had immediately called security to try and keep her in the clinic, convinced she and her baby were about to fall down dead at any moment, but she'd managed to evade them by using her youkai speed to fake left and then dodge right, as if she'd been playing in an American football game. She honestly hadn't meant to crack the glass of the front door with as forcefully as she'd shoved it open in her haste to escape, but at least it hadn't actually shattered, being that coated safety glass stuff.

Inuyasha, who had originally been waiting for Kagome up on the clinic's roof, had already sensed the rising levels of panic in her aura and had nearly stormed the building himself before he'd realized that she was successfully escaping. He'd been there to grab her the moment she'd stepped outside, and together, they'd leapt back up onto the roof, so that when the security guards emerged in their pursuit not five seconds later, she was nowhere in sight.

By the time they'd returned to her family's home, Kagome's face stained with tear tracks as she kept both arms wrapped protectively around her belly, Mrs. Higurashi had already received a worried phone call from the clinic, telling her their version of all that had transpired. She'd told the clinic to send them a bill for the broken window if they must, but to otherwise leave her daughter alone, and as she'd seen Kagome standing there in that moment, practically falling into Inuyasha's embrace like a scared child as the hanyou stood behind her with his arms around her own, Mrs. Higurashi had merely closed the gap between them, kissing her daughter's forehead before pulling her into her own embrace, assuring both of them that nothing would happen to their baby.

Mrs. Higurashi had been good on her word, too, Inuyasha thought with a smile as he felt his son or daughter kicking against his hand in the nightclub. Even though the clinic had done several 'follow-up' calls practically begging for Kagome to return, for her own safety, Mrs. Higurashi had outright refused to schedule her daughter any more appointments with their facility. Since learning that their child, regardless of gender, was going to be born with their father's ears, Kagome had since decided that she would give birth in the Feudal era. Even though she'd be taking a risk, not having any modern medical technology at her disposal should anything go wrong, the irony gods were once again rearing their ugly heads with the simple fact that for her child's own safety, she could _not_ give birth in a hospital.

They would probably whisk her baby away to perform the-gods-knew-what types of tests and experiments. What if their child not only had Inuyasha's ears, but also his silver hair? His amber eyes?

No, Kagome definitely needed to give birth in the past, for everyone's safety. Kaede was an experienced midwife, so as long as there were no major complications, even Mrs. Higurashi had full confidence that the elder miko would know what she was doing. Besides, because of Kagome's youkai side, the odds of there _being_ a potentially fatal complication of some kind had decreased dramatically, anyway.

She was strong, and their child would also be strong. It was another one of those duel curse-blessings that they were getting more used to dealing with lately, in that it was their child's youkai blood that forced them to be born in a more risky environment to begin with, but also at the same time helped to ensure they would survive such a birth without issue.

But since Kagome would've obviously been giving birth in the past had the well truly been sealed after the completion of the jewel, anyway, nothing had actually changed in that aspect, when thought of from that point of view. The miko therefore tried not to think about losing her ability to give birth in a modern hospital, and instead focused on the positive side of things. At least now they knew that their child was going to have its father's ears. Kagome couldn't stop smiling at the thought. His ears were so cute!

“Keh, I think he's kicking in time with the beat,” Inuyasha said in that moment, pulling his wife from her wandering thoughts as she gazed down at her husband resting his hand upon her belly, a smile on his own lips as he felt how active his child was currently being. “Must like this type of music. That's your influence,” he teased, even though he'd be lying if he tried to say he didn't like the music, himself.

Moving back and forth a bit while still standing in place, Inuyasha would admit that, although it had taken him some getting used to, this type of music wasn't really all that bad. Some of the more high-pitched electronic sounds did hurt his ears a little bit, but the deep bass rhythms that vibrated against his very being seemed to encourage his heart to beat in time with their tempo. It brought a literally sense to the expression 'feel the music'.

Cautious of not displacing her robes, Kagome also began swaying in time with the beat, raising her arms high into the air as her voluminous sleeves fanned out at her sides. She looked like a goddess of merriment in that moment, albeit a _pregnant_ goddess of merriment, as she smiled at her husband with the absolute purest of emotions he'd ever seen her wear. In that moment, that instant in time, Kagome was purely, truly happy. Not a single doubt or worry clouded her mind as she emptied her head of such nonsense, letting herself be swept away in the wordless melodies that surrounded her.

They danced in their private corner of the club for an unknown length of time before Inuyasha abruptly came to a standstill, a low growl starting in the back of his throat that Kagome couldn't hear, but somehow sensed, as she opened her eyes and slowed her own dancing, her attention suddenly focused on her husband as his hackles raised and his ears twitched sporadically.

“What is it?” she asked, though he didn't need to answer her because in that moment, she felt it too.

Youkai.

More than one.

“Come on,” he said, as he slowly made his way back towards the main dance floor in the center of the building.

It was awkward to maneuver around so many closely dancing bodies, but with a few loudly spoken “Excuse me”s on Kagome's part, followed by a few polite replies of “I like your kimono,” or “Nice costume,” (in reference to Inuyasha), the duo made their way through the crowd to the source of youki they could both feel.

What they saw stopped them dead in their tracks.

Well, Kagome stopped in her tracks by suddenly bumping into her husband's back, as Inuyasha was the one to deliberately come to a screeching halt. Trying to ask him what was up proved futile, as he swiftly grabbed her arm and silently dragged her back away from the crowd into a different corner of the room that was closer to the bar. The place did serve liquor; you just had to show the bartender valid ID. It was a good place to stand since most people in the club were apparently underage, as there were a few patrons at the bar, but not very many. They were probably buying drinks for all their younger friends, but Kagome didn't care about anything like that. Bottom line was that she and Inuyasha were virtually alone, so it was a fairly safe place to talk.

“Okay, what happened?” she asked, worried over why her husband was keeping his head down, staring at the floor.

It soon became apparent that Inuyasha was actually laughing, though, which caught Kagome completely by surprise when she noticed the shaking of his shoulders and felt the sense of relaxation in his aura.

“What?” she asked again, but with a hint of amusement in her voice that time.

“Look out on the dance floor and tell me what you see,” he asked of her after getting his chortles under control.

Doing as she was told, Kagome scanned the crowd dancing and writhing in time with the music. The flashing and spinning lights and continual bursts of fog and bubbles made catching every detail with her eyes a little difficult, not to mention the fact that everyone was in costume, so half of the people present already appeared to be some sort of monster or another to begin with, but relying on her miko senses, then, Kagome scanned over everyone on the dance floor with her mind's eye, and quickly homed in on the two rather scantily clad women in naughty schoolgirl outfits dancing _very_ seductively with their noticeably older partners.

It was clear the men were completely and utterly smitten by the twins who were surely only using their 'boyfriends' for their money, as those guys were by far the oldest two people in the entirely club, and they weren't very handsome, either. Kagome could definitely feel the demonic auras coming from both of the women, but it appeared faint, and not necessarily threatening, though not necessarily innocent, either. But she didn't think the men were under any sort of mind control. With bodies like those girls had, Kagome was positive the men had been 'ensnared' willingly.

In fact, their bodies were almost _too_ perfect, Kagome mentally grumbled, as her left hand rose to unconsciously rub her swollen belly.

Wait...

Their bodies _were_ too perfect, even for youkai.

“The twins?” she asked her husband knowingly, trying not to laugh out loud herself now.

Nodding his head, Inuyasha confirmed, “The one with the red streaks in her pigtails is definitely a kitsune, and I think the one with the overdone eye-shadow is a tanuki.”

Wrinkling his nose, he added, “Hard to tell for sure with all the damn scents in here, but I ain't pickin' up on their 'feminine wiles' if you know what I mean.”

“Oh gods...” Kagome did laugh then. “They're male?!”

She should have realized, she figured then. It _was_ a traditional prank, after all, dating back to at least the Feudal era.

Fortunately, the dynamic duo of shape-shifting youkai appeared too into what they were doing, and perhaps the loud music was a contributing factor as well, but either way, it was clear that neither of them had overheard the miko and hanyou's discussion as they both just continued to freak-dance against their unsuspecting victims.

“You were right, Kagome,” Inuyasha teased then. “The youkai of your time _are_ friendlier.”

Slapping her snickering husband's chest while trying to get her own giggles under control, Kagome wisely suggested that they should probably leave before the 'twins' discovered their own presence. They didn't want any trouble, after all.

Heading towards the exit, then, they were almost in the clear when yet another demonic aura suddenly brushed up against their senses. Where the hell had all these youkai been hiding before?!

But then again, Inuyasha hadn't really left her shrine grounds all that often over the years except just to follow her to school a few times, so maybe that route was fairly youkai-free? And while Kagome'd gone to a lot of other places, like the store, she definitely hadn't been the best miko back in her school days. Admittedly, Kagome's ability to sense things like demonic auras was a lot stronger now thanks to her merger with the jewel, so maybe these youkai really were still so well-hidden that the 'old' her wouldn't have noticed them.

Inuyasha's own ability to detect demonic auras was a lot stronger when he was transformed, as had been demonstrated earlier that evening at Eri's house, but while in his hanyou state it was really his sense of smell that usually alerted him to a youkai's presence before it got close enough for him to 'feel' its youki against his own. Taking that into consideration, coupled by the fact that he and Kagome very rarely left the shrine grounds when they were in her time, then it was no wonder why he hadn't really noticed any other youkai in her world until tonight.

Besides, it was Halloween, for crying out loud! So it made sense that the hidden youkai of the world would come out into the open on tonight of all nights. Just because they were sensing them now didn't mean they would sense them again tomorrow.

Coming to a stop at the feel of the new aura, Inuyasha glanced around to see if he could spot the youkai among the crowd of dressed-up humans. He was expecting to see another shape-shifter, another youkai that could completely assume human form. What he spotted instead literally took his breath away.

There, standing precariously near the entrance to the club, was a neko-hanyou.

Her short hair appeared spiked with styling gel, and featured randomly placed splotches of black and auburn. She had ears similar in style to his own except they appeared slightly longer and even pointer, and what appeared to be whiskers were growing from her otherwise perfectly human-looking face.

Inuyasha knew he was staring, but at the moment he honestly couldn't stop himself. He'd only met two other natural-born hanyou in his entire life, and they were both from his own century. According to that kitsune at last year's 'haunted house' hanyou were still rare even in Kagome's time, and in fact, he had to imagine they were actually even rarer now, because in order for a youkai to find a human partner willing to overlook their demonic blood, that human first had to be _informed_ of the fact that their would-be spouse was demonic, since the average human in Kagome's time did not know about youkai.

That had to make potential mixed romances even more complicated, since instead of just agreeing to the life of an outcast and risking being called a youkai's whore, etc., human partners in mixed matings in _this_ century had to completely keep the whole thing a secret. How did _they_ give birth, since the hospitals were clearly out of the question? Probably just at home, he imagined, taking an even greater risk than Kagome would be, without the aid of any trained midwife. Unless there were secretly youkai midwives who assisted with hanyou births? Now there was a thought. But his mind didn't wander too far in that moment as he continued to study the neko-hanyou still lingering near the entrance.

This girl must've also been taking advantage of the cloak of Halloween to venture outdoors without the fear of persecution. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to look even less human than he already did. Despite his waist-length silver hair, Inuyasha could always throw a hat on his head and be accepted, for the most part, as just some 'weirdo' punk kid. The hanyou before him, however, probably couldn't get by in the world with a simple baseball cap. Not with those whiskers.

Kagome was just about to ask her husband, yet again, why he'd decided to come to an abrupt halt directly in front of her, but before she even opened her mouth his reasoning became crystal clear.

When the feel of a third source of foreign youki had first brushed up against her aura Kagome had figured that they would still just continue to exit the club as planned. There was no need to stick around since it seemed like the kitsune and tanuki were only interested in some _relatively_ harmless fun. Surely, then, whomever else had just decided to enter the dance club was also merely looking for a good time, and one that did not involve bloodshed or tyranny.

She and Inuyasha probably didn't really _have_ to leave. They had just as much of a right to be there as anyone else, after all. But considering what her husband often told her of how her aura felt against his own, Kagome had figured that it'd just be better to head out before the 'kuromiko' started attracting unwanted attention.

So far so good.

But it was in that moment that the neko-hanyou standing a few paces away must have felt the hole Inuyasha's eyes had been steadily boring into her. Shifting her own eyes to gaze in their direction, then, Kagome's breath caught in her throat at the sight of the most intensely blue eyes she'd ever seen.

Vertically slit pupils expanded and contracted to adjust to the continually flashing lights of the club atmosphere around them, while time seemed to otherwise stand still in a universe comprised solely of two natural-born hanyou and one self-made kuromiko. The expression the cat-girl was wearing was one Kagome could only describe as surprise mixed with fascination and wonder. It seemed obvious that she hadn't been expecting to bump into another hanyou, either, but it was probably the realization that this particular hanyou was with a dark miko, who also just so happened to be carrying his child, that was the biggest surprise of all for the demi-neko.

“Should we introduce ourselves?” Kagome asked her husband uncertainly.

The hanyou girl's feline ears moved forward in that moment, as she obviously saw Kagome's lips moving and was hoping to catch the miko's words, even despite the impossible level of noise interference continually blazing out of the club's sound system. Before Inuyasha could answer, however, it appeared as if the neko had decided to take the matter of introductions into her own hands. Hands that, upon closer inspection, appeared to possess curved, unretractable claws.

“Hi,” she greeted with a shy smile as she closed the gap between them. “I see we're wearing the same designer,” she said to Inuyasha, referring to their hanyou ears in 'Halloween code' should any nearby humans manage to overhear them.

While Inuyasha was a little slow on the uptake, not being from their century and understanding things like 'designers', Kagome caught on quickly and chimed in with, “Indeed you are, and such a rare one at that.”

“Indeed,” the cat-girl acknowledged, before sticking out her hand to shake Inuyasha's in the Western tradition as well as bowing her head as she introduced herself. “I'm Aiko, by the way.”

Inuyasha was fortunately familiar with the concept of handshakes, as Kagome had briefed him long ago on a few social tidbits of this and that to help make sure he could get by in her time during their visits. They got a lot of Western tourists at the shrine, after all, and if he ever got spotted by one of them, he'd need to be able to bluff his way out of the confrontation. He obviously didn't speak English, but Kagome had taught him enough to be able to excuse himself, while letting the tourists know that he didn't speak their language. Thanks to Kagome's lesson on Western greetings, he was prepared when Aiko reached for his hand, and he returned the gesture appropriately in addition to bowing his head as he introduced himself in turn.

“Inuyasha,” he replied.

The girl's blue eyes twinkled in amusement as she commented, “Well, that's an appropriate name, isn't it? But then again so is mine, heh.”

Indeed, 'love child' was a very appropriate name for a hanyou, Inuyasha thought, as any male youkai would be able to tell when a human female was fertile, while youkai females were aware of their _own_ fertility, so there was really no way for a hanyou child to be conceived purely by accident. Not to mention if an accidental pregnancy _did_ occur, and the child was unwanted, even his own century had herbs that would take care of the problem.

In some cases, especially where a male youkai was just raping a human woman, they simply wouldn't care if the wench conceived as a result, but in the case of an actual relationship between a human and a youkai, any child born between them was obviously wanted.

_That_ was something that his own mother had made sure to drill into his head as soon as he'd been old enough to understand the other humans' taunting. Yes, when it really boiled down to it, he was, technically, a 'half-breed', but he was _no_ mistake because he had been loved and wanted by both of his parents, and in the end, that was really all that mattered.

Finding a quieter area of the club once more, they ended up having a rather pleasant conversation with the neko-hanyou for about an hour, as Kagome managed to skillfully intervene any place where Inuyasha's lack of knowledge regarding her time would have become apparent. Aiko was fascinated regarding how Kagome contained both youki and reiki, but fortunately respected the miko's desire to keep her secrets regarding how she'd accomplished such a spell. It didn't take long for the girl's curiosity to move to their unborn child, and Inuyasha surprised Kagome then by not objecting when Aiko asked if she could feel her stomach.

Normally, Inuyasha was so over-protective of his pregnant wife that letting a strange youkai they'd just met touch Kagome's stomach seemed like the _last_ thing he'd let happen, but he just didn't believe that Aiko would do anything to hurt the baby. She was a hanyou; she knew what it was like.

Smiling in pride as the cat-girl's eyes widened in wonder at the feel of his child kicking against her hand, Inuyasha didn't hide his own amazement when she told him that she'd never before heard of a hanyou having a child of their own. Surely such a thing would be rare, but...never? Ever? It wasn't that hanyou couldn't have children, as was obvious considering the one currently growing inside Kagome's womb, but it was the simple fact that nobody would _want_ to be with a hanyou.

“What about two hanyou getting together with each other?” Kagome asked then, but was surprised when it was actually Inuyasha who shook his head.

“Animal-based youkai can breed with humans regardless of species, but most animal-based youkai can't cross-breed with other species of animal-based youkai. You've never heard of a half cat, half dog, have you? Or anything else for that matter. It just wouldn't work. The only way it could work, for two hanyou, would be if they were of a similar animal, like two different types of canines, or two different types of felines, which makes the chances of two like-hanyou meeting that much harder since hanyou are so rare to begin with. I suppose it could also work if one or both youkai parents were elemental, instead of animal, but as far as I know elemental youkai can't breed with _humans_ , so then it still wouldn't work because there's probably no such thing as an elemental hanyou.”

Kagome had never actually thought of that, and she wondered what made humans the exception, with regard to breeding with animal-youkai regardless of the animal. It must have just had something to do with the fact that youkai were magical beings, she supposed, and so they existed on a different level than humans, their bodies following a different set of rules.

That line of thought had Kagome wondering if a certain animal-youkai would also be able to successfully breed with their mortal animal counterparts. Not that any of them ever _would,_ since all higher animal-youkai possessed a 'human' form, like Sesshoumaru, and in truth were as intelligent as any other person. They would never lower themselves to being with an actual animal when most youkai of that status already viewed _humans_ as an animal of sorts. Humans _were_ the 'mortal animal' version of the youkai's elfin form, and when looked at it from _that_ perspective, Kagome supposed she could almost understand why so many higher youkai were disgusted with the concept of hanyou.

Well, no matter. She loved Inuyasha, and would forever remain eternally grateful to his parents, for the blessing that his existence truly was. The world would've been an awful place without him.

Finally excusing themselves for the night after their lengthy visit with the neko-hanyou, Kagome and Inuyasha headed back to her family shrine in pleasurable silence. While they'd already known by that point that youkai in fact still existed in Kagome's time, to actually see two in one day, plus another _hanyou_ , had certainly been the best 'treat' of the night. Snickering to herself at the pun, Kagome hoped those two older gentlemen that had been dancing with the shape-shifters didn't find out about their 'trick'.

“Ugh...” she groaned when they made it to the bottom of the shrine steps. Youkai enhancements or no, she was _still_ seven months pregnant.

Smirking at his wife's pouty-face, Inuyasha took sympathy on her as he held his arms wide in invitation.

“Come'ere,” he murmured affectionately, scooping the future mother of his child up into his arms as she wrapped her own arms around his neck.

She couldn't safely ride on his back with as large as her stomach currently was, so instead she clung to Inuyasha from the front, as she wrapped both her arms and legs around him to the best of her ability, while he helped hold her in place with one hand against her back and the other one under her bum. In a single leap they cleared the entire column of stairs, and he gently sat her back down on her feet and helped her fix her robes.

It was rather late, and all of the lights were off in the house, but instead of merely heading for the well, as they knew Kagome's mother would have a fit if they left without saying goodbye, they tried their best to head indoors as silently as possible, a relatively easy task when one had youkai hearing. So long as they made sure they were exceptionally quiet to their _own_ ears, then they knew that there was no way the three humans of the household would be able to hear them. Perhaps Buyo was awoken from wherever the overweight calico had decided to slumber for the night, but that was of little concern.

Making their way into Kagome's bedroom, Inuyasha quickly locked the door before immediately assisting his wife with the rather daunting task of her undressing. She was wrapped up in so many layers of silk that one would have thought it a wonder that he was able to properly remove them all without tearing a single thing in his frustration, except of course for the fact that he had been the one to dress her in the first place. Patience was a virtue he possessed on rare, necessary occasions.

Standing obediently still, Kagome waited until she felt the very last garment slip free from her person, before she merrily collapsed backwards onto her bed buck-naked. Inuyasha was quick to join her, since his own disrobing didn't take him nearly as long. Shedding his fire-rat robes in as timely a manner as possible was something he'd gotten quite good at in the last couple of years. Crawling into bed beside her, Inuyasha snuggled his naked form flush against his wife's, not that he expected they would do anything of a more adventurous nature, but he simply loved the feel of her body pressed up against his own.

Kagome smiled as she felt Inuyasha spoon her from behind, scooting himself as close to her as he could physically get without the two of them merging into a single being. As he rested his large, clawed hand protectively over her rounded belly, Kagome couldn't help but to smile even wider. Her husband had never once given her the opportunity to develop that unnecessary insecurity regarding her weight and appearance. She didn't know if perhaps it had something to do with the youki in her system, if it made her human hormones develop and react differently in her system than they ordinarily would have, but while she'd always heard that pregnant women could get irrationally emotional towards the end of their pregnancies, she'd yet to feel any of those symptoms.

Snickering to herself, she'd admit that it seemed very unlikely that Inuyasha had suddenly learned how to say and do all the right things, considering his track record, but perhaps it wasn't so much what he said as what he _did_ that made the difference. Actions did speak louder than words, after all, and for a man of so few words, like her husband, it was truly his actions that mattered.

How could she ever allow herself to think that she was a fat cow, for example, when her husband was constantly caressing her belly like it was the greatest treasure in all the land, like he was presently doing in that moment? When her _mate_ continually stared at her with wonder in his eyes, truly amazed over the fact that she, that _anyone_ , had wanted to have his child? How could she, even for a moment, develop the irrational fear that he was no longer attracted to her, when he always insisted upon snuggling together in the buff?

When she could clearly feel the very real physical evidence of just how attracted to her he was poking into her from behind?

Wait...

“Umm, Inuyasha?”

Chuckling nervously, the hanyou somehow managed to resist the urge to grind himself against her, as he answered in as innocent a tone as possible, “Yes?”

“Is that what I think it is?”

“That depends,” he answered teasingly. “What do you think it is?”

He wasn't expecting Kagome to be the one to suddenly writhe against him in that moment, deliberately grinding her backside against his rapidly hardening erection. Releasing a pained groan of longing, Inuyasha just managed to hiss through his teeth, “Stop that. Don't start what we can’t finish.”

“I do believe _he's_ the one who started it,” the miko retorted.

“Well, I can't control what _he_ does,” he replied, adding, “but I know when I need to tell him no.”

Turning herself over slightly, so that she was mostly still on her side, but also on her back far enough that she could turn her head to meet her husband's gaze, Kagome's youkai night vision allowed her to lock eyes with her husband as she asked, “Who said you had to tell him no?”

Before he could respond, Kagome rolled herself all the way over, onto her right so that she was suddenly facing him. Grabbing a fist full of hair with her left hand, she pulled him towards her as she captured his lips with her own. Inuyasha's initial surprise was short-lived as he quickly melted into the kiss, but his eyes snapped wide open at the feel of his wife's hand leaving his hair for a place located much further south.

“Ka...gome...” he managed to pant between kisses. “We...can't...remember?”

“Just because _I_ can't, doesn't mean _you_ can't,” she cooed, while rolling a bead of precum around his sensitive head with the pad of her thumb.

He shuddered at the contact before crashing his lips back down upon her own. Before Inuyasha even knew what was happening, Kagome had the blankets kicked off and was sitting up, working him professionally with her more experienced right hand.

Long ago, shortly after they'd first gotten married, he'd confessed one of his most secret fantasies to her. After all, although he'd deliberately kept her in the dark regarding his feelings, Inuyasha had known of her love for _him_ for well over a year before they'd finally gotten together. The hanyou had confessed one night to just how long he'd truly desired her, and how many times he'd secretly relieved his body's tension himself when said desires had gotten too strong. He hadn't just lusted after her, of course. He'd been in-love with her through and through. But desiring her sexually had definitely been an active part of it.

One of the hanyou's favorite, most forbidden fantasies, he'd told her, had always been that while he was in the throes of pleasuring himself, she would somehow stumble upon him in the forest, and that despite her shock and embarrassment, she would become incredibly turned on, and would then proceed to 'help' him relieve himself. It was a fantasy they'd since acted out on several occasions, especially during the first few months of their relationship, when they'd still been hunting Naraku and hadn't had much in the way of privacy. As a result, Kagome was now very skilled in the art she was currently demonstrating.

After last year's new moon experience in the cave, where she'd finally gotten Inuyasha to willingly submit to lying on his back as she towered over him, Kagome had since managed to get her husband to agree to the position even while in his hanyou form. He obviously had no complaints in that moment, as he raised his hips in time with her hand's movements, while forcefully biting his lower lip to keep from moaning his pleasure aloud. It might have been his original intention to go without, hardly thinking it fair that she should have to pleasure him in such a way when he couldn't return the favor, but the sneaky wench had attacked him too quickly for him to protest the idea. There was no turning back now.

“Trick or treat?”

It took the hanyou a moment for his foggy mind to wrap itself around his wife's whispered words.

“Huh...wha...?”

“Trick _..._ ” Kagome purred, slowing her movements, which caused a groan of desperation to escape her husband's throat. “Or treat...?” she purred once more, leaning forward and puckering her lips, blowing a gentle, teasing current of cool air over his heated flesh.

A whimper not unlike a house dog begging for table scraps escaped the hanyou's throat against his will, but he never needed to fear embarrassment or judgment for his canine half from the woman currently sitting above him. Kagome actually relished in the sound, knowing what a tight lock and key her husband usually kept his animal instincts under. For him to lose that control, even for a second...for him to unconsciously release a sound controlled by the base most instincts of his youkai half, it went a long way to show Kagome just how good she really was, and how deeply she was truly loved and trusted by the man currently lying before her. A man who in truth was only half a man, yet had no fear to show his animal side in front of her, knowing he was accepted for exactly who and what he was.

Responding as though his whimper had been his answer to her question, which in a way it had been, Kagome smirked while replying, “I thought so,” as she leaned herself forward once more.

_Good gods..._

As Inuyasha felt his wife's lips surround him, he was powerless to do anything more than concentrate on not piercing her mattress with his claws. Fisting his hands in her hair seemed like a reasonable alternative. He was sure there would come a moment when his thoughts would've been ' _fuck_ the mattress', but he would never, _ever_ hurt the woman he called his wife. His youkai half was also desperate to recapture at least a marginal sense of control, so with his hands suddenly guiding her head's movement, it was a lot easier to accept the fact that she still had him sprawled out on his back below her.

As for Kagome, she didn't mind in the least that he had suddenly taken such a dominating role. Tonight wasn't about domination at all. She merely wanted to pleasure him, because seeing him writhe in pleasured agony was a guilty pleasure of her own, and one she'd allowed herself to go without for almost as long as her own physical enjoyment. It was just too risky for her to have sex that far along in her pregnancy. Not that the actual act of intercourse would put the baby at risk, but experiencing orgasm could _possibly_ trigger early labor, and she most definitely did _not_ want to risk _that_.

Letting her husband control her movements, then, Kagome concentrated on keeping her jaw open as wide as it would go and keeping her gag reflexes to a minimum, as he controlled the rhythm of her head bobbing up and down while his hips slammed upward in time with his own tempo. It was a little more forceful than she might have appreciated back when she'd been purely human, but now that she had a youkai side lurking in her own psyche, Kagome found that she not only still liked it rough, but she could handle it a lot rougher than what used to be her physical limits. It was a lot better getting fucked up against a tree when it only took a couple of hours for the scratches to heal.

Feeling his pending orgasm winding itself tighter in his gut, Inuyasha desperately tried to release Kagome's hair, but found that his body simply wouldn't obey his mind's command as his animal side was far too lost in its activities. The only thing he could do was warn her.

“Ka...gome...oh _fuck!_ I'm...I'm gonna...!”

A severely muffled cry attempted to escape his lips, as he kept them clamped as tightly shut as possible, a trickle of blood leaking from the side of his mouth where he pierced himself on a fang. Holding Kagome's head down as his balls tightened and his hips locked in place, he momentarily had conscious thought to hope that she would forgive him, a mere fraction of a second before he emptied his hot seed down her waiting throat.

Kagome had been prepared, and managed to swallow everything he gave her without incident. While she'd pleasured him orally on several past occasions, she'd very rarely done so to the point of completion. Usually, it was just a teaser to get his blood going, and as soon as he'd had enough, he'd demonstrate how she could never _truly_ dominate him, by using his hanyou strength and speed to suddenly flip her over and slam into her from behind, usually before she even had time to realize what was happening. There had been a few times that she'd brought him all the way to completion with her mouth, though, but during all of those times she'd always pulled back, at his insistence, finishing him in the last few seconds with her fist, as he'd release his seed on his belly.

Tonight had been the first night that, instead of shoving her away, Inuyasha had actually deliberately held her in place. He'd always argued that such a thing was simply too demeaning, that he loved and respected her more than that. Kagome wondered in that moment if he was fearful that she'd be disgusted with his action, as if he'd cheapened her in some way, but the truth was that she understood how he'd obviously been a slave to the pleasure, and to her, there could be no greater compliment.

Releasing her hair was awkward for him, then, as he managed to pry his fingers open and move his hands to his sides, but before Inuyasha really had time to worry, while he was still lost in that moment of bliss from the afterglow of rapture, Kagome backed away enough to offer him a lazy smile, as she licked her lips and cooed seductively, “Mmmm, we both got a treat.”

Successfully breaking the ice on the subject, Inuyasha merely laughed at her playful comment, as had been her intention, as Kagome made it beyond apparent that she wasn't angry with him.

“Sorry 'bout that, couldn't help myself,” he apologized truthfully, a lopsided smile crooking his lips.

“Good,” she replied. “If you were that far gone, then that means I did it right.”

An aftershock of pleasure shuddered through him in that moment, just thinking about the activity that had just taken place. While discussing things of a sexual nature used to embarrass him, that was before he'd found himself a wife willing to fuck his brains out, among other things. That night marked the second anniversary of the first time they'd ever made love, and in another couple of months, she would be giving birth to their first child. He never used to think that either his body, or his heart, would ever one day experience the levels of pleasure that now washed over both of them on a regular basis.

A lot of men claimed to be the luckiest man alive, given their current situation of love, but with a man like Inuyasha, he could make such a claim with authentic sincerity. He was _hanyou;_ nobody was supposed to want _him_. The simple fact that he had survived a childhood on his own in the woods was testament to his inordinately high levels of luck, but add to that everything else that'd happened in his life – ninety percent of which the woman at his side was directly responsible for, from having friends to acquiring Tetsusaiga – and it was clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Inuyasha _was_ the luckiest man alive.

Realizing in that moment that he'd remained quiet for longer than he probably should have after his wife's comment, Inuyasha smiled up at her in that moment, as he brushed a stray hair from her face and ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.

“You did it right,” he told her finally, his voice void of sexual teasing as his eyes locked onto hers with a look of sincerity. “You did _everything_ right.”


	4. The Nightmare Before Christmas

A/N: This is the final chapter and epilogue of the Hallow trilogy. Be sure to check out my other Halloween related fics!

Chapter 4 – The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tightening the robe of fire-rat around her shoulders, Kagome offered her husband an appreciative smile as they made the short trek to the well. How had it gotten so cold, so quickly? Oh, right, none of that pesky 'global warming' stuff had happened yet in this century.

As approaching snow clouds raced each other on the frigid afternoon breeze, ensuring that that night's storm would be a chilly one indeed, the miko almost felt guilty for leaving when the other residents of their village had to suffer through the pending storm, while she and her husband would be safe and warm on the other side of the well. Not that travel was probably the best idea in the world, considering her belly was ready to pop at any minute, but it was Christmas Eve, she had to celebrate it with her family. Besides, a nice juicy drumstick in Original Recipe sounded _so_ good right about now.

Chuckling at the sound of his wife's growling belly, Inuyasha asked her, “Was that your stomach, or is the kid just getting testy?”

“I think a bit of both, actually,” she replied with a smirk as they reached their destination.

Scooping his nine-month pregnant wife up into his arms bridal style, a feat he accomplished without any difficulty thanks to his youkai strength, Inuyasha waited for Kagome to tuck herself into him, folding her legs back and resting her head on his chest, while wrapping her arms around his neck. As soon as he was sure that she'd made herself as small as possible, and he could safely leap into the well without Kagome getting hit by its edge on the way down, he made his jump, smiling at the feel of the welcoming rays of linear magic that danced against his aura whenever they passed back and forth.

It hadn't taken him long at all to rebuild the well back when it'd been destroyed eight months earlier, during the fight with that neko daiyoukai. While the reason the well had originally worked as a portal connecting time was because it'd been constructed with wood from the Goshinboku, the sacred wood that continued to line the well's frame underground was obviously still enough in its own right to allow the time portal to function, as they had successfully used the well with its above-ground structure completely demolished. Therefore, Inuyasha had merely decided to discard the well's remains within its pit, as he used all new wood to reconstruct a duplicate of its original appearance on the surface.

After all, even though the well still worked just fine as a literal hole in the ground, it needed to be reassembled so that it would exist in its complete form in Kagome's time. Paradoxes and all that.

In fact, as the miko thought about it, it actually made sense that the well had been reconstructed during the Feudal era. After all, the original well in Inuyasha's time had already been extremely old and dilapidated to begin with, yet five hundred years later in her time, it appeared just about the same. Now, the reason why the well in her time wasn't literally crumbling to pieces with its incredible age made perfect sense; it was younger than they'd originally thought.

Arriving in said well at that moment, Kagome remained in her position snuggled against her husband in his arms, even after she felt the magic of time travel leave her. She didn't move until after she felt the fast breeze rush by her, indicating that she and Inuyasha had now cleared the well and were standing beside it in the well-house shrine building. Turning her face from where she'd had it buried against his chest, then, Kagome blinked up at her husband with a tender smile. A smile he readily returned as he slowly and carefully tipped his arms to help her stand back up on her feet. She might've been strong and resilient, but that was _very_ precious cargo she was carrying.

Making their way outside, Kagome was relieved to discover that the afternoon air wasn't nearly as cold in her family's time, as she returned her husband's jacket to him. While Inuyasha would probably have just told her to keep it until they got indoors under normal circumstances, the hanyou had since learned how Kagome could literally go from too cold to too hot in a matter of seconds, so if she no longer wanted to wear his suikan, he wasn't about to force her to.

That far along in her pregnancy, he wasn't about to force her to do _anything_ she didn't want to do, which unfortunately included staying home in the Feudal era on Christmas Eve. The only consolation he felt in making the venture through time was that they'd definitely had a fairly cold winter storm on the approach back in his own century, and he was grateful to be able to get Kagome away from the upcoming nasty weather. Her family's home was warm, and safe, and full of such wonderful smells...

The hanyou would never really understand why they insisted upon putting a plastic pine tree in the middle of the living room, but he would admit that the smell of the cinnamon scented candles flickering on the tabletops was a nice change from all of the various other odors he could usually pick up around the house.

Mrs. Higurashi kept her home sparkling clean, but that was actually most of the problem. Inuyasha could handle musty, dusty 'old building' smells just fine. It was the harsh chemicals of sterilizing cleaners that really bothered his sinuses. Not that the scents were usually too overwhelming, especially when there was usually the odor of recently prepared food of some kind or another also lingering in the air that he could focus on instead. But he definitely preferred the aroma of scented candles to disinfectant, so the Higurashi home was especially pleasing to his nose at that moment.

Hugs were exchanged as they entered the genkan, and after removing her sandals, Kagome allowed her mother to help her to the couch.

“And how is little InuTaro doing?” Mrs. Higurashi cooed while placing a hand on her daughter's belly, causing Kagome to giggle behind her own hand.

Although naming their child would officially be Inuyasha's job, her mother had just up and started calling her unborn grandchild InuTaro one day, and it'd sort of stuck ever since, despite Inuyasha's protests.

“He's doing quite well,” Kagome replied, as she proceeded to tell her mother of the funniest craving she'd experienced to date. Chocolate and pickles? Bleh.

It was a good thing it'd been in the middle of the night in the Feudal era when the desire had struck her, because there was no way she could make a 'store run' under those conditions. She'd fortunately gotten over the craving the very next morning, and had proceeded to wonder just what the hell Junior had been thinking in the first place. Was he trying to see how fast he could make Mommy throw up?

Mrs. Higurashi laughed at her daughter's ire, and proceeded to tell Kagome of some of the wonderful cravings she'd forced upon her during _her_ pregnancy. Kagome apologized guiltily, before busting up in another round of giggles. Inuyasha merely shook his head as both women continued to laugh, but it was in amusement. He loved seeing his wife so happy, and especially with her mother. The fact that the older woman accepted him, accepted the fact that her daugher's children, _her_ grandchildren, would be part youkai...

Inuyasha knew he owed Mrs. Higurashi about as much as he did her daughter. _Both_ women had been nothing but kind to him from the moment he'd met them, even when he hadn't really deserved it. It was no wonder where Kagome got her gentle, understanding disposition from. Idly, Inuyasha wondered if her temper came from her father, but that was a subject they broached very rarely. Not that he could blame her with as infrequently as he spoke of his own mother. But now wasn't the time to worry over such things.

They had a pleasant visit with her family well into late afternoon and early evening, until Kagome's mother finally decided to run out to collect that night's chicken dinner. While Inuyasha had had chicken on several occasions in his long life, nothing in his time could ever compare to the bizarre, yet incredibly delicious way that they seemed to prepare the bird in Kagome's world.

He'd had KFC on two past occasions, the two previous Christmases that had passed since his marriage to Kagome, and the hanyou was thoroughly in love with their extra crispy variety. That was another reason why Kagome had insisted that they'd had to come tonight, because her mother had already placed the order including the extra bucket of chicken for Inuyasha, and all that food would've gone to waste if he wasn't there to eat it.

Mrs. Higurashi did share her son-in-law's concerns regarding her daughter's pregnancy, however. All throughout dinner, every time Kagome made the tiniest moan or groan, she had two people from either side of the table both asking her if she was all right. She appreciated the attention, really, but to be perfectly honest, their paranoid behavior was starting to make her a little paranoid, herself. She lost track fairly quickly of how many times she had to tell both her husband and mother that she was fine. Souta, on the other hand, seemed perfectly confident that his sister was okay, but wouldn't stop asking her about what type of special abilities his niece or nephew was going to have. That quickly got annoying in its own right, when he simply wouldn't accept “We don't know” for an answer.

Exchanging gifts went over well. Kagome's grandfather was thrilled to receive all of the rare dried herbs she'd collected for him over the summer. Rare in the future, anyway, as modern industrialization nearly drove some of the more delicate plants to extinction. For her mother, the miko had taken several one-time-use cameras back into the past, and spent the last year cataloging precious memories that she'd then made into a photo album. It was a repeat of the gift she'd given her mother the year before, but as everything continued to change and children continued to grow, Mrs. Higurashi truly appreciated being kept up-to-date in the half of her daughter's life that she couldn't personally experience.

As for Souta, Inuyasha had gotten a little creative and had decided to honor the lad who'd always thought of him as his personal hero, even back when he hadn't really been much of one. Having kept the fang of a rouge oni that'd wandered into his forest last autumn, he'd had the local blade smith turn the fang into a dagger. There was no way in all the hells he'd have given such an important job to Totosai. They didn't want Souta accidentally blowing up his family's home! But the local smith had been happy to do the small favor after everything the hanyou had done for their village over the years. Plus in a way, he had been paid for his favor with a huge favor in return, that being the acquired knowledge of how to forge youkai bone in the first place.

Inuyasha had discussed it with Sango first, who knew the old slayer tricks when it came to forging youkai bone like metal to make weapons, and she had agreed to assist the village blade smith by sharing the secret with him, which she had agreed shouldn't stay a secret, anyway. Now, their smith could teach his children, and there just might one day be a new generation of youkai slayers in their midst.

Kagome had also contributed to her brother's present, because she had been the one to purify the fang of any residual traces of evil prior to giving it to the blade smith. It was seemingly a harmless ivory dagger, now, completely void of magic, but Souta was still stoked to own something that was made from an oni's fang, and in truth the blade was strong enough to pierce youkai flesh, which meant he definitely didn't need to worry about accidentally breaking it because it was nowhere near as fragile as regular ivory.

Inuyasha wondered how he'd top it next year.

The resident time-travelers weren't the only ones to have come bearing gifts, of course. Kagome hugged her mother while shedding happy tears for the small collection of baby clothes she'd received. _Traditional_ looking baby clothes, so that nobody in the Feudal era would know the difference, and in gender neutral colors and patterns since they didn't really know yet if it was a boy or a girl.

Of course, the fact that his wife's mother, a human woman who had grown up thinking that youkai were nothing more than the monsters of children's bedtime tales, was willingly helping them to provide for their hanyou child was more than enough of a Christmas present for Inuyasha. So he couldn't help but to laugh, then, mostly just to cover his dumbfounded appreciation, when he opened the box Mrs. Higurashi had addressed to him only to discover three cases of instant ramen.

If he would've had anything left over of his own mother's, he would have given it to her, she meant that much to him, but unfortunately Naraku had destroyed the shell of lip coloring he'd given to Kikyou fifty four years prior. As it was, Inuyasha showed his gratitude in the only way he knew how, by bowing deeply in respect...close enough so that she could tweak his ears. It was amusing how Mrs. Higurashi could squeal in delight just like her daughter.

Souta was just about to give his sister his present, a 10,000yen gift card to her favorite bookstore, when she suddenly winced in pain while grabbing her stomach.

“Sister?” “Kagome?” Both Souta and their mother asked worriedly at the same time.

“Kagome!” came the frantic call of her mate not two seconds later.

“I'm fine! I'm fine!” she insisted with a bit of a laugh, though her voice and face were both still contorted with pain. “Although perhaps we should cut our evening short,” she relented then, her eyes meeting her husband's with an apologetic gaze.

“Oh no, no way,” Mrs. Higurashi chimed in then before Inuyasha even had a chance to say anything. “Not with that blizzard you two told me they were expecting tonight.”

“But...”

Kagome quickly shut her mouth when the look her mother shot her left _no_ room for argument. Inuyasha, on the other hand, had only ever seen Mrs. Higurashi's nice side, and so he proceeded to disagree.

“Kagome needs to get back, weather be damned. She needs Kaede to deliver the baby.”

“You are _not_ taking my daughter back to the past to give birth in a cold hut with no electricity in the middle of a snow storm!”

Cowering in fear, Inuyasha quickly realized in that moment that Kagome did in fact get her temper from her mother, after all.

“Guys!” Kagome tried to intervene then, hoping she sounded more optimistic than she really felt. “We don't even know that I'm going into labor. It was just a little cramp. I'm sure we can stay until mor-”

The miko's words were cut off as another wave of pain washed over her lower abdomen, much stronger than the last one.

“Okay, that seals it,” her mother said with finality.

Inuyasha knew there was no arguing with the elder Higurashi woman, but still...

“Who's going to help Kagome with the delivery?”

“I'll call Dr. Moto,” Mrs. Higurashi stated, as though it was the most obvious decision in the world.

“What?! No!” Kagome protested. “I'm not going back to the clinic. I won't!” Wrapping her arms around her stomach in a very protective fashion, Kagome's eyes briefly flashed to red and back as she declared, “I would rather give birth by myself in a cave than let that man anywhere near my baby.”

“There's no other option!” her mother retorted. “He's the family doctor, and-”

“Feh!” Inuyasha interrupted then, getting more protective because of his mate's emotional state. “Kagome's in no condition to travel.”

“You were going to take her through the well!”

“I could get her safely to Kaede's in under a minute! Those metal carts you people travel in-”

“Enough!”

Everyone froze as they slowly turned their gazes to the one person who'd been so quiet in the last few minutes they'd nearly forgotten that he was even in the room.

“Here's what we're going to do,” Kagome's grandfather stated with an authoritative tone. “We're going to keep an eye on Kagome's condition, and prepare her bedroom for the baby's delivery.”

Kagome's mother looked as though she wanted to argue against the idea of Kagome giving birth in the house, but she snapped her mouth shut just as quickly as she'd opened it at the look her father-in-law sent her way, before the old priest continued with his instructions.

“We'll monitor her progress, and as soon as she's close to delivery time, we'll call the paramedics. If we time it right, then they'll have no choice but to help Kagome deliver the baby here. On the other hand, if things haven't progressed by morning, then Inuyasha can take her back through the well. Labor can take hours, especially for the first baby, but because there's youki involved we can't really guess a reliable time frame.”

Inuyasha chimed in in that moment, agreeing with the old man as he acknowledged, “Kaede said that she's heard hanyou births are usually pretty fast. Probably a safety thing, to get the mother out of her most vulnerable stage as quickly as possible.”

“I know Kagome's got youki in her,” Souta voiced in confusion, “but other women having hanyou babies are just normal humans. How can there be a 'youkai' safety thing like that for human women?”

“Keh, the mothers may be human, but the babies they're carrying are half youkai. It's up to the kid how long it wants to take to be born, and a youkai brat knows on an instinctive level that putting their mom at risk means putting itself at risk, too.”

Mrs. Higurashi would question the statement that it was actually the will of the unborn child that determined the length of delivery time, though then again, mothers who'd had especially long labors did often joke about how their children hadn't _wanted_ to come out.

Either way, she was relieved to learn that hanyou births were apparently easier than conventional births in that regard. The last thing she wanted for her poor daughter was to suffer through countless hours of painful contractions as her body took its sweet time, especially since until the paramedics arrived, she wouldn't be receiving any sort of medication for the pain.

Things progressed according to her grandfather's plan for the next few hours. Kagome was propped up against several pillows, sitting in bed, and comically worrying over the fact that she'd just eaten and drank to her heart's content at Christmas dinner more than she was over the fact that she would be giving birth at home instead of in a hospital. Inuyasha had already assisted her with going back and forth to the bathroom twice, so hopefully she was good now.

The miko respected her mother's concerns, but greatly appreciated the fact that she'd relented to her desire to avoid the clinic. Mrs. Higurashi had only been thinking from a worried mother's point of view, after all, but keeping that frame of mind in place in reference to her own daughter, it was no wonder why the miko was so adamant about keeping her hanyou child away from that place. As for the pesky little detail of whether or not she would truly be giving birth at home, or if her labor would last long enough that Inuyasha could return her to the past come morning, that question was answered rather abruptly the moment Kagome declared with mild anxiety that her water just broke.

Recognizing his cue to call the paramedics, Souta rushed into the kitchen to make the call. Coming from a background of over three years of experience making up stories on Kagome's behalf, their grandfather's script for the boy was simple, and mostly the truth.

He told the phone operator that his sister and her husband were just visiting for the night and that his sister had gone into labor. True. He said this was her first baby, and that they had no idea how long the birth was going to take. Also true. He told them his sister was hysterical, and for some reason crying 'no hospitals' and didn't know that he was calling an ambulance for her out in the kitchen. Umm...not so much. He also told them how it appeared his mother was agreeing to her wishes, as they weren't even talking about driving her anywhere. Was it really safe to just give birth in the house by yourself?

_That_ conversation ensured that whomever they sent to 'get' Kagome would be fully versed on the scene they'd be walking into. Then, it'd be up to the whole family to make sure their unsuspecting victim did the job they'd actually hired him to do, aid in Kagome's delivery at home.

What might've only been around twenty minutes later, or several agonizing eternities in whichever layer of hell was infested with scores of river-dancing abdominal parasites, depending on your perspective, Inuyasha informed his wife and the rest of her family that the paramedics were running up the shrine steps.

Although he hated to see his wife in so much pain, and would readily agree to allowing her their century's modern version of pain killers to help ease her distress, Inuyasha supported her decision to remain at home one hundred percent. There was no way he'd let her anywhere near a birthing clinic after what she'd informed him her family's doctor had wanted to do to their child. Granted, Dr. Moto hadn't truly been prejudice of 'InuTaro's' hanyou status, because he hadn't been _aware_ of it, but that was beside the point. Aside from literally grabbing her baby and forcefully fighting her way out of the hospital, past security guards and who knew what else, there'd be no way that she and their child would be able to leave once they saw what it looked like.

Of course, it was still risky having medical professionals involved at any level at all, but they had a plan for that as well.

Having run downstairs to meet the paramedics at Inuyasha's heads up, Souta was in position when they arrived, looking as frantic as ever, and rambling on and on about how his family was going to be so angry with him when they found out that he'd called them. On the way upstairs, he told the two men how everyone else was in his sister's old bedroom, the room that had been hers before she'd gotten married and moved out, and that even though they wouldn't let him in there, saying he was too young, it was obvious she was in labor from the way everyone kept talking about it.

“Paramedics!” they called out while knocking loudly on the door before then trying the knob, which of course wasn't locked. Nobody wanted to have to replace any doors, after all.

Inuyasha, who was dressed for the role of modern-day husband in a pair of Kagome's dad's old slacks and a Christmas sweater, topped off by a wool cap that nicely covered his ears, jumped to his feet in 'surprise' as the men barged into the room.

“What are they doing here?!” he demanded, glaring at Souta who stood precariously behind them, while Mrs. Higurashi placed a soothing hand on her son-in-law's arm and cooed something softly about Souta just being a boy and not knowing any better.

The paramedics looked around the room in concern and confusion. The young woman in the bed appeared to be in the heavy throes of labor, while it seemed that her punk looking husband with bleached hair and gold contacts was adamant that she receive no medical treatment for her condition. Was he in a gang?

The older woman also in the room, clearly the girl's mother, looked as though she'd had everything prepared for a home delivery. Glancing across the room, the bedroom window had some sort of Shinto ofuda slapped to its surface, and although they hadn't noticed it originally, upon closer examination, so did the door to the room they'd just entered through.

Was it some sort of archaic religious practice to not take your daughters to the hospital when they were in labor? What was _wrong_ with these people?

“Ma'am, your daughter needs to go to the hospital at once,” Nagai, the lead paramedic, said with concern.

“Like hell-” Inuyasha started to protest, though he stilled when his wife raised her hand to grasp his wrist.

Turned out Kagome hadn't been about to interrupt him, though, she'd merely been experiencing another contraction.

After gritting her teeth as the pain washed over her, she managed to apologize to the paramedics, saying how her brother shouldn't have called them, and that she _couldn't_ go to the hospital, stressing the word. Then, wincing in pain once more, she started to cry, half from the genuine pain and exhaustion she was feeling, half a part of the act, as she confessed that she was scared, though, to be giving birth without a doctor.

Nagai again insisted that she needed to go to the hospital, attempting to assure her that everything would be all right, and that's when Mrs. Higurashi dropped the bomb of her daughter's broken water sack. Kagome was fully dilated, and by that point, her mother was honestly surprised that she hadn't already started crowning. They'd actually cut it a little close on the paramedics call, but on the other hand, they couldn't have called them too early because then it would've been too hard to avoid their insistence of taking Kagome to the hospital.

As it was, upon realizing how close to delivery the girl actually was, the lead paramedic immediately consented that, under the circumstances, the best thing to do was to assist the girl in her birth right then and there, and then take both her and her baby to the hospital for standard post-birth examinations afterwards, not to mention cataloging birthing records and all that.

Mrs. Higurashi had of course started to disagree, attempting to shoo the men from her daughter's room, but in that moment, Kagome blurted that she wanted them to stay. That if they would let her give birth in her bed, which she was already doing anyway with or without their help, that she wanted somebody who knew what they were doing to assist her in case anything went wrong. Mrs. Higurashi appeared to sigh in mild resignation before consenting to her daughter's wishes.

Secretly, Inuyasha was fighting his baser instincts during all this.

They'd warned him in advance that the 'paramedic' person they'd have come assist Kagome would almost certainly be male, and he _hated_ , absolutely _loathed_ the idea of some strange man seeing and touching his wife so intimately. In his time, delivering babies was something that only _women_ did.

Hell, he shouldn't even be in the room! No way in hell would Kaede have let him remain, but by that same token, there was _no_ way in _any_ hell he was going to leave Kagome alone with that strange man currently touching her the way he was.

He was just there to help deliver the baby. That's what the hanyou kept telling himself over and over again. There was obviously no way in hell that _he_ could help Kagome deliver their child, not with those ten miniature daggers on his fingertips. The only one who was a viable option was Kagome's mother, but the woman had admitted to lacking the necessary knowledge to offer her daughter the type of assistance Kaede would've given her back in the past.

Sighing to herself, a genuine sigh that time, Mrs. Higurashi wondered if she'd been unreasonable in her refusal to let Kagome go home just because of the weather. But even though her daughter was a grown woman, she was still, and always would be, her baby girl. They could've ignored her wishes and headed for the well anyway, so she truly appreciated the fact that her daughter had respected her enough to allow her to have her way on this issue, at least in part.

Kagome was secretly happy about the way things had played out, too, for several reasons. For one thing, she really hadn't wanted to return to the past that night when it was most certainly freezing on the other side of the well. Her mother had certainly had a valid point about giving birth in a cold hut in the middle of the night with no electricity, in the middle of a snowstorm. Her room was warm, her bed was comfortable, and Inuyasha was by her side, which was truly the only thing that Kagome _really_ cared about.

She also wasn't nervous about the paramedic whom she'd never met before assisting her with her delivery, because she'd been telling the truth when she'd stated that she would simply feel much better with _anyone_ helping her who'd had training and knew what they were doing, rather than her going it alone.

In reality, since Kagome had had training as a midwife herself, she pretty much knew all the ins and outs of childbirth, and wasn't going into this totally ignorant. She could've given her mother and Inuyasha instructions to assist her if need be, as she already knew all of the things like when to breathe and when to push, and when _not_ to push. So because of her knowledge, she hadn't truly been in as great of a risk as she could have been, should the paramedics thing not have panned out, but as it was, she still preferred having their assistance. Not to mention their painkillers. Just because her youkai side gave her a higher tolerance for pain didn't mean it didn't still hurt just as badly.

As the man of the hour got into position, Kagome tightened her hold on her husband's wrist to silence the growl that had started to build in his throat. Nagai glanced nervously in Inuyasha's direction, but Mrs. Higurashi spoke up in that moment that Inuyasha was only concerned for the safety of his wife and their unborn child. She assured the man that everything was fine, and that they appreciated his desire to help Kagome. Inuyasha's eyes briefly met his own with a look that bespoke of slow pain should anything go wrong, but he also gave a curt nod to indicate to the man that he had his permission and trust to proceed.

Gulping nervously, Nagai worried about the sanity of the girl's husband. He'd seen plenty of overly protective spouses in his day, but never in his career had he ever heard anyone actually _growl_ at him. What made it even worse was how both the Kagome girl and her mother merely seemed to be soothing the man, as if his growling like a wild animal was a perfectly natural reaction, and what had Mrs. Higurashi said his name was, Inuyasha? That was obviously a gang name.

The secondary paramedic, Hori, having missed the subtleties of what'd just taken place between Inuyasha and his partner, took that opportunity to lead Souta back out of the room, congratulating the boy on his quick, independent thinking, and assuring him that he'd done the right thing on behalf of his sister. Souta and Kagome's grandfather appeared out of nowhere in that moment, a rosary of holy prayer beads wrapped between his hands that weren't just for show, as the elderly priest offered genuine prayers on behalf of his granddaughter for an easy birth and healthy baby.

“Right thing, my eye!” he said, surprising the young paramedic with his level of hostility. “Souta, you should have known better! How can _his_ child be born in a hospital?” he questioned his grandson harshly.

Souta's eyes grew exaggeratedly wide in that moment, as if only finally just realizing the error of his ways. “I...I'm sorry, grandfather, I didn't think-” he started to apologize.

“You're damn right you didn't think, boy,” his grandfather 'criticized' before his facial expression softened just a bit, as he added, “But you were only concerned for your sister and her unborn child. I suppose I can't fault you for that.”

Looking as though he was relieved to at least be partially forgiven, Souta took off down the hall in that moment, entering his own room with a worried expression on his face. His grandfather walked off in the other direction, heading downstairs into the living room, leaving the paramedic standing in the upstairs hallway very confused, until he shook his head to clear it and reentered Kagome's bedroom to assist his partner.

The birth went surprisingly well, or at least, it was surprising for the two men who'd had no idea that hanyou births were supposed to be faster than normal, or even that the birth they were assisting in was a hanyou birth at all. While Hori administered Kagome something for the pain that still kept her clear-headed, and monitored her heart rate with mild concern because of how high her pulse seemed to be, Nagai was busy with the actual delivery. Once Kagome started crowning, the miko feared the paramedic aiding her would shriek in surprise at any moment, but why everything was still all right was answered when her mother slyly informed she and Inuyasha in a rather overzealous way how their baby had a full head of _raven_ hair, as opposed to being born bald.

Well, that answered _that_ question.

The birth continued to be relatively easy, at least as easy as a birth could be, while Kagome kept steady contact with her husband for both her support, as well as his own. Inuyasha needed his wife's calming influence to not jump off the handle at the strange man holding his child. One wrong move, and he'd be ready...

With the delivery of their daughter complete, Hori took the infant to clean and tie-off the umbilical cord while Nagai continued to assist Kagome with delivering the afterbirth. One solid push later and that was expelled, and Kagome collapsed against her mountain of pillows with an exhausted yet elated expression on her flushed face, her bangs stuck to her sweaty forehead in a way that Inuyasha would swear had never looked sexier.

That was when they all heard Hori gasp.

Looking up quickly, they saw and heard the man frantically telling his partner how the baby had no ears. Well, none that he'd noticed yet, anyway. Nagai took the infant before Mrs. Higurashi could intervene, and after digging around in the freshly rinsed head of downy soft baby locks of raven black, he discovered with dread what they'd hoped could've stayed hidden. Two little flaps of fuzzy skin folded over what appeared to be the child's ears, placed way too high upon her head, almost like puppy ears.

_Inuyasha..._

The baby girl he held in his arms chose that moment to open her eyes, and a set of honey-amber orbs gazed up at Nagai's panicking face quizzically, showing way more awareness than a newborn infant should have been capable of.

_Those aren't contact lenses..._

Snapping his eyes back up to meet the father's own piercing orbs of burning gold, Nagai could do nothing but hold his breath, while Hori babbled something next to him about the child needing to be taken to the hospital right away.

“That child isn't going anywhere,” Mrs. Higurashi stated with conviction.

“Give me my baby!” Kagome cried, trying to crawl out of bed despite her current condition.

Turning to run, Hori took half a step before coming to a screeching halt, nearly crashing right into the girl's grandfather who was suddenly standing right in the doorway, blocking his path.

“Going somewhere?” the Shinto priest asked with a grin so wide, and face so polite, that it was scary in its own right. Holding up an ancient looking bottle of sake, he then said, “You must stay, celebrate the birth of my first great-grandchild!” He seemed positively giddy with family pride.

Instinctively, Nagai tightened his grip on the infant he held in his arms, and the girl started to whimper in discomfort, not from any physical pain, but from the emotional distress she could sense in the room all around her. The area literally reeked of fear. What was going on? Instinctively, smelling fear made the baby afraid, and it wasn't long before her distinctly canine whimpers grew into more human-like cries.

Inuyasha's eyes flashed red in that moment, which wasn't a part of the plan, and Mrs. Higurashi had to scramble to get Tetsusaiga from where she'd stashed it in her daughter's closet. She hadn't thought that it would look too good for him to be wearing a sword on his hip, but she should've known better.

Growling low in his throat, Inuyasha stepped away from Kagome's bedside, worrying his wife when she lost physical contact with him, but so far, he seemed to have himself under control, as his eyes kept shifting back and forth between crimson and amber. Nagai stiffened at the man's appearance, and barely managed to keep from soiling himself when Inuyasha's lips pealed back to reveal razor sharp fangs.

“Unhand. My. Child,” he stated in a voice much lower than his usual timber, jagged purple stripes slowly appearing on his cheeks.

At his words, Mrs. Higurashi stilled in her attempt to reach for his sword, instead turning to face the paramedic standing not three feet away, as she held out her arms to indicate he should give her the baby. It didn't appear that Inuyasha was on the verge of becoming a mindless killing machine, so retrieving the baby was definitely more important than retrieving Tetsusaiga.

While she'd never before witnessed one of her son-in-law's transformations, Kagome had told her before of their occurrence, including the fact that she had been helping her husband over the last year with spiritual exercises to maintain more control over his mind while in that form. From the looks of things, those exercises had been a good thing, indeed.

Thoroughly freaked out, Nagai could do nothing but stand there in shock, even as Inuyasha viciously yanked the cap from his head, as though he were disgusted with its very presence, revealing his own set of canine ears, both of which were turned forward, homed in on every sound Nagai's body was making. Hori was the voice of reason in that moment as he frantically said, “Just give them the child, man! We'll write on the report that it was a false alarm!”

As if hearing his partner's words had been what he'd needed to snap himself back into reality, Nagai hastily handed Mrs. Higurashi the crying infant before he and Hori practically ran from the house, their path made clear by the infant's great-grandfather who stepped aside as soon as he saw Nagai hand the girl over to her grandmother.

Unafraid of approaching Inuyasha in his half-transformed state, Kagome's mother knew that seeing that his daughter was safe would be all that was needed for his heated blood to cool back down. Indeed, as Inuyasha observed the woman holding his child, a woman who did not reek of fear, but rather smelled of family and love, the crimson from his eyes immediately drained to reveal relieved orbs of golden amber.

“Your daughter is safe, Inuyasha,” she cooed then. “And quite healthy, from the sound of things,” she added with a bit of a chuckle, having to speak a little louder than normal to be sure she was heard over the infant's cries.

The adult hanyou's attitude immediately shifted from protective to nervous as his wife's mother handed him his crying daughter. He'd never held a baby before, not even Miroku's son. The instant the child was placed in his arms, however, she immediately stopped her wailing as her nose started twitching a mile a minute, clearly picking up her sire's scent and recognizing him for who he was.

“What are you going to name her?” Mrs. Higurashi asked as she smiled at the shared look of amazement between father and daughter. His expression was understandable, but it was genuinely shocking to see such recognition in the eyes of a newborn baby.

“No clue,” Inuyasha admitted sheepishly with a touch of pink rising to his cheeks, as he confessed, “I'd only been thinking of boys' names.”

The baby girl in his arms started to whimper again in that moment, and it was then that Kagome decided to speak up, having been enjoying the scene before her in silence as she shared her mother's reaction to observing Inuyasha holding his daughter.

“Sounds like she's hungry,” the miko stated, as she worked a breast free from the yukata her mother had helped her change into after the onset of labor.

“I'll leave you three alone,” Mrs. Higurashi stated with a smile as she observed Inuyasha very carefully passing their daughter into Kagome's arms, so that she could feed their brand new infant for the very first time.

It reminded the elder Higurashi woman of the days when she'd been a new mother, herself.

“If there's anything you need, just call me,” she added as an afterthought before seeing herself out of her daughter's old bedroom. Neither new parent even looked up or acknowledged her words in any way, simply too lost in the presence of their daughter.

Inuyasha remained silent for several minutes as he observed their daughter suckle dinner to her heart's content. Then finally breaking the silence, he brushed a stray hair from Kagome's face as he murmured, “Merry Christmas, love.”

“Merry Christmas, Inuyasha,” Kagome replied in kind, her smile the purest he had ever seen her wear to date. “And what a wonderful Christmas present you've given me,” she added after a moment, brushing the back of her knuckles across their daughter's silky forehead.

“I disagree,” he argued affectionately. “She is the best present that _you've_ ever given _me_.”

Finally seeming to realize that they were now alone in the small bedroom, Inuyasha smiled to himself as he stated with amazement, “Your mother has got to be the most understanding, caring, loving woman in the whole world.” Leaning forward to kiss his wife's cheek he added, “It's no wonder where you get it from.”

Kagome felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest, and not from how rapidly it was beating. Even though he'd opened up to her tremendously throughout the last two years of their marriage, hearing him say something so heartfelt was still a fairly rare occurrence.

“Your mother was a remarkable woman as well, you know,” the miko spoke up in that moment. “To have fallen in love with a youkai, to have bore him a son, and to have raised that son on her own with love and devotion, despite the prejudice of the world around her.”

Inuyasha had to close his eyes to prevent them from watering at his wife's tender words.

“Mate...” Kagome whispered lovingly, gaining his full attention as he reopened his eyes and locked gazes with her. “If you have no thoughts at this time as for a name for our daughter, may I name her instead?”

Kagome understood and respected that in the time her husband was from, naming the children was the father's honor, but the name she had picked out would honor not only her husband, but also the woman who'd sacrificed herself to raise him.

“Whatever you want, mate,” was the hanyou's response, not carrying about something as trivial as his right to name their child when he was still so overwhelmed by the simple fact that he _had_ a child.

He had a child. His own, biological, flesh and blood offspring. He and the woman he loved had created new life through their expression of said love. Kagome could name their daughter whatever she wanted.

Smiling, Kagome looked down at her feeding daughter, just as amazed as everyone else had been to see such recognition in her eyes. The part-canine infant suckling from her breast _knew_ that she was her mother. Reaching up and gently caressing her daughter's soft hair, carefully massaging the delicate ears that rested hidden within, she stated with finality, “This child's name is Izayoi.”

Inuyasha made a sound that was a cross between a gasp and a choke, as he stared at Kagome with an unreadable expression. Just when the miko was beginning to worry that she'd made a terrible mistake, her husband's expression melted into one of absolute, unadulterated devotion, as he crashed his lips down upon her own in a passionate kiss that bespoke of his eternal gratitude. Gratitude for the gesture of naming their daughter after his mother, gratitude for her desire to bear his child in the first place, gratitude for her love and partnership even back when the outcome of their mission had still been so uncertain, and gratitude for her very presence in his life, from the moment she'd first awoken him from his enchanted slumber.

He would never, _ever_ tire of her presence, as his love for her would only continue to grow over the years, over the next _centuries_ to come. His love for her would grow as their family would grow around them, as he promised himself then and there that there was no _way_ their current daughter would be their only child. He wanted an entire litter of puppy-eared children with the woman currently lying beside him.

As if reading his thoughts, Kagome commented in that moment, “I wonder if all of our children will look like her, or if some will have human ears, or silver hair.”

“So long as they are our children, I don't care what they look like,” he stated, realizing in that moment that it was true; he _didn't_ care. They could have muzzles and tails, or appear like pure-blooded humans. As long as they were the product of himself and Kagome, that was all that mattered.

“Come on, Otou, there's room for you up here,” Kagome said with a smile as she scooted herself over.

Crinkling his nose as he rolled her title for him around in his head, Inuyasha joked as he joined her in the bed, “Oyaji is more like it.”

It was then Kagome's turn to crinkle her nose.

“But I like Otou better, and besides, you've been calling me Okaa.”

Shrugging the best he could while lying on his side with one arm draped across her belly, he replied nonchalantly, “Oyaji is more appropriate.”

Wanting to disagree but biting her tongue, Kagome smiled down at their daughter once more, before racking her brain for a term they could both agree on. Her husband _was_ from the past, so something less modern would definitely be more fitting.

“How about Chichi-ue?” she asked him then.

His eyes widened a bit at the surprisingly respectful term before drifting fully shut, a pleasant upward curve to his lips as he replied, “That'll work, Haha-ue.”

```````````````````````````````````````

“Trick or treat!”

“Oh my, and what are you supposed to be?” the elderly lady with graying curls asked the five-year-old standing before her.

“I'm an inu-hanyou!” the girl replied with pride, wiggling her puppy ears for emphasis, which caused the old woman's eyes to widen in surprise before she quickly dumped a few pieces of candy into the child's plastic bucket and closed the door.

Laughter could be heard coming from a few paces behind the girl, and she turned to stick her tongue out at her 'babysitter'.

“Izayoi, if you keep scaring everyone like that, then I'll never get my turn to collect any candy!” Shippou stated in amusement.

“I'll share, I've got plenty!” she replied while holding up her bucket.

“I'll say,” the kitsune commented, impressed, as he looked at his charge's collection. “But this is also my first Halloween in Haha-ue's time, and I'm gonna enjoy it!” he declared then, stating as they approached the next house, “This time, I'm going first.”

Pulling a leaf from his vest, Shippou quickly made sure that no one was around before he popped himself into the appearance of a human boy wearing a standard-issue Digimon costume. He'd promised his mother that he would behave himself while in her time, and not let anybody know that he was a kitsune, or that Izayoi was a _real_ hanyou. Of course, tell that to the five-year-old who kept insisting upon wiggling her ears everywhere they went, but he supposed such a thing could always be chalked up to batteries, right?

Yeah, that sounded like a good excuse, he'd go with that. This wasn't just her first time Trick-or-Treating after all, but his as well, and he planned on making the best of it, no matter what. So 'battery powered' definitely sounded like a good excuse if anybody actually grew too suspicious of her ears and tried to cause trouble. He'd just earned his right to be in Kagome's time unsupervised. He wasn't about to blow it now.

For the longest time, nobody had even realized that Shippou was capable of traveling through the well. He'd tried to pass through it once, long ago during his adoptive parents' quest to complete the jewel – the _first_ time around – and since the well had failed to allow him entry into Kagome's time, even with some jewel shards, the kitsune had simply assumed, as had everyone else, that he was incapable of traveling through the portal at all. It was because of that reason that his adoptive parents had always attempted to keep their ventures into the future at a minimum, visiting with Kagome's family for longer periods during her time's various holidays, but otherwise spending the grand majority of their time in the past with him. While Kagome had definitely wanted to share Izayoi with her mother, and had taken lots of 'mini' trips into the future for the elder woman's sake, the miko had done a good job of making sure that her attention remained evenly divided between their two children.

After all, just because Izayoi was their first-born _biological_ child didn't mean that they loved him any less as a son, and Shippou understood that. He'd realized what he'd truly meant to the couple back when they'd gone out of their way to make a room for him in their hut, the hut that Inuyasha had begun construction of immediately following the purification of the Sacred Jewel. He hadn't minded staying with Kaede for those first two months at all, not when he'd originally believed that he'd be stuck staying with the elderly miko forever. The fact that Inuyasha and Kagome had actually wanted him in _their_ house had left the kitsune literally speechless the first time they'd told him, which was quite a feat to accomplish in its own right.

Since then, he'd tried to make his new parents proud of him, which included becoming a stronger youkai, so he often took off for a couple of weeks at a time, himself, to take the Kitsune Youjutsu exam. He might still be a little kid, in youkai terms, but Shippou was definitely old enough to understand how the couple would appreciate some time to themselves from time to time. Hence why he had agreed to take Izayoi Trick-or-Treating.

They'd first discovered that Shippou could pass through the well about eight months ago, and quite by accident. It'd never even been a concern of theirs that Izayoi would be able to pass back and forth, as she'd been born in the future, but held a definite connection to the past through her father's blood. Shortly after her birth, as soon as both she and Kagome had been up for it, the couple had returned to the past with their new baby in tow, and the villagers had been all aflutter over their newest addition. The three of them had gone back and forth through time often, even if only for a couple of hours at a time, as Kagome had definitely not wanted her mother to miss out on any part of her granddaughter's growth, while at the same time always feeling bad about having to leave Shippou behind. The kitsune had understood, but that hadn't made it fair.

They'd been heading into the future yet again, that time to celebrate 'Uncle Souta's' birthday, when Izayoi had started wailing about how she wanted 'Aniki' to go with them. She had never quite understood why Shippou always had to stay home whenever they went through the magic well. It wasn't often that Izayoi exhibited her hanyou speed and strength, but she'd done so in that moment when she'd broken free of her mother's grasp just in time to grab a shocked Shippou by the tail and leap back into the well with him.

Kagome had caught both of them in surprise just as the lights of time began to engulf them all, and to everyone's surprise, Shippou included, the kitsune had successfully passed right on through into the future with the rest of them. Apparently, all that had been needed was to be in physical contact with Kagome. She had been able to carry him through just like she'd once carried those dried youkai in her backpack, thinking them harmless jerky.

Overjoyed at the discovery, they'd opted to not look at all the time lost in that moment, as Kagome had instead enjoyed getting Shippou up to speed on everything in her world. Fortunately, he was a fast learner, and while it had turned out that being in physical contact with either Kagome or Inuyasha _was_ required to pass through the well, he'd started going with them often. Kagome had been thrilled to finally have her _entire_ family together around her mother's dinner table.

Still, love her children as she did, there was something to be said for occasional nights alone, just she and Inuyasha. At first, whenever they'd needed some 'alone time' together, either Sango and Miroku had agreed to watch Izayoi, or Kaede would take her in if they were unable. Shippou remembered with pride the first time they'd left a then one-year-old Izayoi alone in his care in their hut. Granted, it'd only been for a few minutes as there had been an oni in the forest they'd needed to take care of, but that had still been such a tremendous gesture of trust on Inuyasha's part that Shippou had promptly stopped insulting the hanyou after that day, even in jest.

They'd started leaving her in his care for longer intervals of time after that. As Izayoi had continued to grow, so had the kitsune's relationship with the couple he no longer thought of as merely his guardians, but truly his parents, as he began calling them “Haha-ue” and “Chichi-ue” himself, to avoid any unnecessary confusion with the toddler. Izayoi thought of Shippou as her older brother, even after she'd grown taller than him, as her human blood caused her to age like a mortal child. Now, at age five, she was already over twice his height, but since he could make himself _much_ bigger with the use of his kitsune magic, it evened out.

Izayoi was strong, though, possessing all of her father's inherent youkai abilities, which they were sure would also include slowed aging once she reached adolescence. Inuyasha had told Kagome how even he had aged like a human child until around his thirteenth or fourteenth birthday, when he'd virtually stopped aging altogether. It'd taken him over a century to lose what random enemies had always called his 'baby face'. Finally, he appeared to be a young man in his very late teens, roughly the same age as his wife, and thanks to Kagome's newly acquired youkai aging, she wouldn't surpass him in appearance now, as they'd continue to age together ever-so-gradually over the next several centuries to come.

Snapping out of his thoughts at the sound of a slamming door, Shippou couldn't help but notice the distinctive twinge of fear lingering in the air, as Izayoi happily dashed back to him from up at the house's front door as she proclaimed, “Look how much candy I got this time!”

Shaking his head in amusement, Shippou remained silent as they headed down the sidewalk to the next house with a lit porch light. The fact that Inuyasha and Kagome trusted him enough to keep an eye on their daughter during her first time Trick-or-Treating was so unbelievable, that when they'd first asked him if he'd be up to the task he'd very nearly blasted them with a kitsune attack he'd learned at the Inn designed to undo the illusions of others. His thoughts had literally been _Who are you and what have you done with my parents???_

Of course, the two of them weren't _completely_ alone, as Mrs. Higurashi was waiting for them in the car down at the end of the block, but still.

But Halloween was and would forever be the couple's anniversary, so it was no wonder why they'd wanted to spend the holiday alone. Now that Izayoi was out of her extended 'terrible twos' stage, which Kagome had called the 'terrible two, three and fours', they had finally started talking about making her a baby brother or sister, and Kagome had recently gone back off the pill. Inuyasha had been very understanding when Kagome'd requested that they wait a few years between children. Since she wouldn't outgrow her child-bearing years for at least five or six centuries, they had plenty of time to work on that litter of puppy-eared children he was looking forward to.

Still, why put off till tomorrow, right? There was no time like the present, as the saying went.

Ten miles across town, in the suite of a fancy hotel, Inuyasha's lips slowly curled up into a smile as he detected the subtle change in his wife's scent.

“What're you smiling about?” Kagome asked him lazily, as she snuggled her nude form up against his own just a little bit tighter.

“I'll tell you in the morning, mate. Get some rest,” he murmured while kissing her forehead.

~~~ The End ~~~

For real this time.


End file.
